


Until Time Makes History of Us

by surrexi



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode Remix, Episode: s03e08-09 Human Nature/Family of Blood, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-11
Updated: 2013-05-02
Packaged: 2017-12-08 04:07:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 52,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/756862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surrexi/pseuds/surrexi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Settled in to life without the Doctor in the alternate universe, Rose Tyler takes a walk in a park and suddenly finds herself in 1913. Then she meets a man, identical to the Doctor, calling himself John Smith. Is he the Doctor's Pete's World doppelganger, or has Rose somehow ended up back in the proper universe and stumbled upon the Doctor and his new companion? (Human Nature/Family of Blood remix; rating is more PG than PG-13 but I'm labelling it as teen to be safe)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Turn Your Back, Look Away and Blink](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6644458) by [Lumendea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lumendea/pseuds/Lumendea). 



> Way back in 2007, I came across a fic on Teaspoon which had the premise of Human Nature/Family of Blood-based reunion fic. I loved the premise, but many of the choices the author made had me thinking "oh, I'd have done that differently..." I told a friend of mine about it, and she insisted that since I didn't have an original fic idea for that year's NaNoWriMo, I should write my own HN/FoB reunion fic for it instead. That sounded like a delightful idea, so I did, and that remains the only year I've won NaNo.
> 
> So here's my disclaimer: the idea of HN/FoB-based reunion fic, and a few minor elements such as Rose getting a position as the school's librarian, came from CharmingSlayer on Teaspoon and her fic "Turn Your Back, Look Away, and Blink." Beyond that, I went in my own direction and I had a lot of fun doing so. Also, Doctor Who is obviously not mine.
> 
> This fic was originally betaed by my bff/awesome!twin, Nikki (unbrokensky@lj).

* * *

Rose Tyler tapped her pen rapidly on her desk as she slogged through what seemed like a mountain of paperwork generated by her team’s last investigation. Defending the earth was all well and good, but she often wished that she didn’t have to document so much of the process. 

She scanned a report by one of her team members about a recent operation in Leeds and signed the bottom after confirming that everything was in order. Rose had learned from the Doctor – best way to save the universe was to only take the best. As a result, she rarely had problems with the members of her hand-picked team – Torchwood Three, it was called. Pete Tyler was head of Torchwood One, where all the research and development, all the politics, happened. Torchwood Two was a single-person monitoring operation on the Shetland Islands, and was run by a different person every year.

Torchwood Three was different. Under Rose’s hands for the five years she’d spent in the parallel universe, it had become an elite field team, dispatched to investigate strange occurrences, collect data, and fight back when necessary. There were some within the organization who had grumbled when Pete had not only announced that he had a daughter no one had known about for twenty years, but had also given her a choice position in a newly-created area. Despite the experience she’d brought to the table and the results she and her team had produced within mere months of Torchwood Three’s conception, there were grumblers still.

For the most part, Rose ignored them. After Bad Wolf Bay, Rose had poured herself into her work with more dedication she’d have ever thought possible back when she’d been nothing but a girl in a shop. She bloody well knew that she was qualified for her position, and she wasn’t going to let anyone stop her from continuing to do her best. If she wasn’t Rose Tyler, Defender of the Earth, then who was she?

Once she was finished with all of them, Rose collected each of her team members’ reports and put them in a folder along with her own. She sealed it with red tape and then stamped it, front and back, with a bright red stamp reading “CONFIDENTIAL: TYLER, P.” Finally, she signed her own name to the bottom with a flourish. By tomorrow, it would be on her almost-father’s desk and he could decide who else could know which details of the incident. Rose had no taste for politics, something she was never quite certain she’d picked up from the Doctor or come up with on her own.

Rolling her shoulders to work out the kinks from being hunched over her paperwork for hours, she glanced at the desk clock. It was already a quarter past one. Rose sighed and reached for her purse. Jackie’d been after her lately for being too thin; if she skipped lunch again, not only would Jackie know – and Jackie _always_ knew – but Rose would be subjected to at least fifteen minutes of scolding, which would lead to being forced to eat seconds (possibly even thirds) at dinner.

She stepped out of her office and strode down a short hallway. “Oi, Mark,” she said, poking her head inside a doorway. “I’m going down the park for a bit of lunch. Keep an eye on things while I’m gone, yeah?”

“No worries, boss,” he replied with a distracted wave. His eyes never left his computer screen. Rose was caught between a grimace and a smile; her search for the best people to put on her team of investigators had led to her team being full of extremely dedicated individuals. This, she supposed, was really just a polite way of saying that none of them had lives outside of Torchwood or the ability to carry on a social life. But Rose had also decided that this merely made it easier for them to work together and trust each other, since they all understood each other.

She stepped out of Torchwood Three headquarters and onto the streets of London. Though both Torchwood One and Three were located in the capital city, in order to give Rose and her team a slightly larger measure of autonomy they were not located in the same building. She considered heading over to Torchwood One to see if Pete or Mickey were free, but then again, they usually ate lunch at noon like normal people. Instead, she walked toward a nearby park. It was a pleasantly warm late spring day, and for once the sun was shining. Rose thought it best to take advantage of such things whenever possible. On the way, she bought some fish and chips from a cart.

A short walk later, she found herself sitting on a park bench watching London walk by. In a habit more than five years old, she unconsciously scanned the crowd for scarred leather jackets and long brown coats. The tinny sound of her mobile ringing cut through her aimless thoughts, and she answered it mechanically.

“Hello, Mum. No, I am not skipping lunch.” She paused to let her mother bluster. “Seriously, Mum. I’m in the park right now, eating fish and chips.” She smiled and shook her head bemusedly. “Yes, really.” Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed something different about the park. A new statue had been put in not twenty feet from the bench where she sat. She stuffed the last bit of fish in her mouth and gathered her remaining chips as her mother launched into a story about Rose’s younger brother.

Rose stood up and wandered closer to the new arrival. It was an angel carved in stone, and it appeared to be weeping. Its head was cradled in its hands, and she marveled at the detail of the carving when she realized that under the hands was a fully-carved face.

She was in the middle of laughing at the end of her mother’s story when she blinked.


	2. Chapter 1

Rose landed in a heap, eyes squeezed shut, head spinning, and stomach churning. She took a deep breath and inhaled the strong scent of grass – normal earth-grass, she noted, not the tangy apple grass she’d once lain in with the Doctor. Idly wondering if she would ever stop comparing every experience she had with a similar one she’d once had with the Doctor, she sat up slowly and took stock of herself and her surroundings.

First, she took a moment to make sure she didn’t feel like she’d broken anything. After assuring herself that her body was fine, apparent motion sickness and dizziness aside, she registered that her mobile was in her hand in one piece, and her chips were spread on the ground around her, definitely inedible.

“Okay,” she muttered, “nothing ruined except my chips. That’s always a good sign. Next step: check surroundings.” She looked around, and then scrambled to her feet in alarm, fighting off a fresh wave of dizziness and nausea.

She was no longer in the park in London. In fact, it appeared that she was no longer in London at all, but rather on a grassy field that gave way to fields of grain within a few hundred yards. A hysterical giggle bubbled up in her throat when a stray thought entered her head that she really ought to have a dog in a picnic basket hanging off her arm rather than a slightly oversized purse containing her wallet, date book, and tissues. “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore,” she said conversationally to the mobile phone still clutched in her hand. Relieved that the inanimate object gave no response, she turned around to face the other way and was greeted with the sight of a large building off in the distance, but not much else. Certainly nothing that could help her identify where she was.

“All right, now it’s time to call Pete,” she muttered. He could do a GPS trace on her mobile and tell her where she was. It was only then that she noticed that her phone was showing no signal. “What?” Her phone was no Doctor-modified superphone, but she hadn’t gone somewhere with it and found herself without a signal in the entire time she’d worked at Torchwood. 

“Okay, there _must_ be people in there,” she said to herself, glancing back at the large stone building. She brushed off her suit coat and slacks and tucked her phone in her purse. After taking only a few steps in the direction of the building, she sighed and toed off her shoes. They were absolutely adorable, but much more suited to the laminate floors of Torchwood Three than the soft ground of rural England. At least, she _hoped_ it was rural England. It certainly appeared to be, and Rose was going to run with that assumption until forced to do otherwise.

The first thing she noticed as she drew closer to the building was that she was going to have to climb through a hedge to get there. The second thing she noticed, with no small amount of relief, was a Union flag moving slightly in the breeze. The third thing she noticed put a hitch in her step.

Just outside the low wall around the building, someone had set up bunkers built with sandbags. Some distance beyond the sandbag bunkers, closer to Rose, a number of dummies with sandbag bodies and tin pail heads were set in a row. Rose reached the line of hedges and leaned over them, squinting at the bunkers and dummies. “Okay,” she muttered. “Union flag, good. Target practice bunkers, bad. Hole in the shrubbery…” She trailed off when the only “hole” she found was a break that even her younger brother would have balked at attempting to push through. “Next to nonexistent.” She sighed. “Oh well. Further up and further in,” she said determinedly, consigning her suit to the rag pile.

Three rips in her trousers, two rips in her jacket, and one stinging scratch on the back of her hand later, Rose broke free from the narrow but dense row of hedges. “Bloody hell.” She reached into her purse for a tissue. “Next time, I don’t care how far out of my way I have to walk. I’m finding a bleedin’ gate.” She pressed the tissue to the cut on her hand and strode as purposely as she could under the circumstances toward the building.

Inside, John Smith woke with a start.

He blinked a few times, trying to clear the mist of sleep from his mind. Caught somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, he was absolutely certain for one wild moment that something was coming for him, and he had to hide, and hide well. There was something about… something that he owned, something he kept here in this room. Then he blinked again and sat up, and the dream became just that: a dream, details fading even as he swung his feet over the edge of the bed. The sound of a knock on his door distracted him from any effort he might have made to hold on to the details of his dream.

“Come in,” he called out. Martha bustled into the room carrying his breakfast tray.

“Pardon me, Mr. Smith,” she said upon catching sight of John in his nightclothes. “You’re not dressed. I can come back later.”

“No, it’s all right,” he assured her, standing and pulling on his dressing gown. “It’s all right. Put it down,” he added, gesturing toward a table. He tilted his head, gazing at Martha oddly as she efficiently set out his breakfast. 

“I was, um…” he trailed off awkwardly. Martha looked up at him inquisitively. “Sorry, sorry,” he muttered. “Sometimes I have the most extraordinary dreams.”

Martha moved to the windows to open the drapes. “What about, sir?”

“I dream I’m this…” John searched his brain for the proper term. “Adventurer,” he finally settled on. “This… daredevil, a madman. The Doctor, I’m called.” He watched Martha as she secured the drapes and crossed back to the table where the breakfast tray sat. “And last night, I dreamt that _you_ were there. As my… companion.”

“A teacher and a housemaid, sir? That’s impossible.”

“Ah, no,” he acknowledged easily. “But for a man from another world, though…” John paced toward the fireplace, drawn there by the oddest feeling.

“Well,” Martha was saying, “it can’t be true, because there’s no such thing.” John was staring at a fob watch he kept on the mantel, so he didn’t notice Martha’s wistful expression.

“This thing,” he said, his voice almost a whisper. He picked up the watch and inspected the odd engraving. “The watch…” He trailed off. _The watch is me_ , he heard faintly in the back of his mind. Shuddering ever so slightly at the strange half-echo of his dream, he set the watch back on the mantel. The watch is me, indeed. It made no sense! “Ah, it’s funny how dreams slip away.”

He turned back to Martha, who had an oddly sad look on her face. He smiled brightly at her. “I do remember one thing for certain, though. It all took place in the future, in the year of our Lord two thousand and seven.”

“Well,” Martha replied with an indulgent smile, “I can prove that wrong for you, sir.” She held out a newspaper. “Here’s the morning paper. It’s Monday, November tenth, 1913, and you are completely human, sir.” Had John been paying attention, he might have caught the tiny sigh that preceded her next words. “As human as they come.”

“Mmm, that’s me,” he murmured, already reading the first article as Martha made her way out of the room. “Completely human.”

Had John Smith voiced his curiosity as to why he sounded slightly regretful, Martha could have told him. Because he wasn’t completely human, he was the Doctor – he just didn’t know it. Martha wished more than anything that things could go back to normal.

Unfortunately for Martha Jones, things were much more likely to go in the opposite direction.

\-----

Rose clambered over the stone wall separating the grassy field with the bunkers and dummies from the rest of the grounds of this building. She thought it too big to be a privately-owned home and the grounds too deserted to be one of those stately home historical sites. It was just after lunch, wasn’t it? There ought to be picnickers all over.

It was then that she realized just how _cold_ she was, and that not only was the sun not as high in the sky as it should have been at half-one; it was barely above the horizon. She stopped in her tracks and stared at the bare trees, spun around and looked back at the bare hedge that she’d squeezed through to get where she was. She rubbed her arms briskly and pulled a fresh tissue out of her purse to hold against the scratch on her hand, which was still bleeding slowly.

“Okay, Rose, _think_.” She dabbed at the cut and wished she had some Neosporin and a bandage. “Nausea, dizziness, seemingly sudden change of location.” She looked back at the stone building. “Two distinct possibilities. Option one: in a freak kidnapping plot, I have been abducted, drugged, and dumped in the middle of nowhere for no apparent reason.” She shrugged. “Not that horrible, all things considered. Option two…”

Rose thought back to a conversation she’d once had with Jack shortly after he joined her and the Doctor on the TARDIS, long before the Game Station and the Doctor’s regeneration had separated them. They’d been sitting on the captain’s bench in the console room on the TARDIS, holding hands companionably and talking as the Doctor tinkered with something. She’d lifted his hand and poked at his wrist comp curiously.

_“What is this thing, anyway?”_

_Jack looked down at his wrist. “My wrist comp. Basic scanning capabilities, it can interface with other computers, and it also has a vortex manipulator.”_

_“A vortex manipulator – so that’s how you traveled in time, then? Running your cons – London Blitz, Pompeii on volcano day?”_

_Jack smiled cockily. “He’s not the only one who can travel in time.”_

_The Doctor popped out from under the console indignantly. “_ That _is not time travel. The_ TARDIS _is time travel.” He focused on Rose, as if it were very important that she listen to him. “_ That _is like… being sucked through a straw and spat right back out through it afterwards, and happening to land in a different spot than where you started.”_

_Rose glanced from the Doctor to Jack. “Do I need to get out a tape measure?” she asked, a wry smile on her face._

_“Only if you want to.” Jack said with a wink before shrugging good-naturedly. “A vortex manipulator is very simplistic next to something like the TARDIS. But it’ll get you where you need to go in a pinch. Of course,” he added with a nod to the Doctor. “It isn’t anywhere near as comfortable as this.”_

_“It’s not?”_

_“Time travel without a capsule,” the Doctor put in. “Ouch.”_

_He ducked back down underneath the console and Rose looked over at Jack, who merely shrugged again before changing the subject._

“Option two,” Rose said to herself, “time travel without a capsule. Ouch.” She shivered and continued forward toward the building. She wasn’t against time travel as a rule – obviously, she’d have been perfectly happy to do it for the rest of her life. Thrilled, even – except only if it were with the Doctor, on the TARDIS; not for no apparent reason and without a traveling companion. Without even the slightest hint as to _why_ or _how_ she’d been transported – if that was what had happened – Rose would have no way of knowing how to get _back_.

“Here’s hoping it’s option one.” Finally she reached one of the doors and rapped it smartly with her cold knuckles. She waited a moment, and when there was no response, she tried the handle. It was an awfully large building, if no one was within the immediate vicinity of the door, it would be impossible for them to hear her knock. The door creaked open slowly, and Rose slipped inside.

Her stomach sank as she took in the dim hallway. It was definitely beginning to look like option two was the more likely, as nothing she could see from the doorway gave any indication of being from anything close to her time.

“Hello?” she called out tentatively. “Is anyone there?” She began to slowly walk further inside, nudging the door shut behind her with her foot. “Hello? I’m sorry to intrude, I could use some help…” She thought she caught the faint sound of footsteps and raised her voice a little. “Hello? Is someone there?”

Sure enough, the sound of footsteps stopped briefly, then got closer and louder. Within moments, a young woman with curly brown hair wearing an old-fashioned maid’s uniform appeared from a side corridor. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “Who are you, then?” She came closer to Rose and her eyes widened as she took in Rose’s tattered suit and bare feet. “Whatever’s happened to you?” she asked, sounding scandalized.

“I…” Rose paused. She’d been making up evasive stories for the locals for years, but in this case, it seemed that the truth would actually do quite nicely by way of explanation. Or lack thereof, anyway. “I don’t know,” she admitted.

The maid’s face softened with pity. “Well, don’t you worry none. I’ll take you to see the matron and she’ll fix you right up. I’m Jenny, by the way.” She smiled brightly as she took Rose’s elbow. “What’s your name? Or don’t you remember?”

Rose realized that Jenny had assumed Rose couldn’t remember more than just what had happened to her. Her instinct for having a cover story kicked in. It was starting to look pretty definite that option two reigned supreme and Rose _had_ been sent back in time. Amnesia would be a convenient way to avoid having to explain how she came to be there in the first place, and in such out of place clothing.

“It’s…” She paused for effect. “Rose,” she said finally, with the tone of someone making a grand discovery. “My name is Rose. But… I can’t remember anything else.” She allowed some of the distress she was feeling to color her tone.

Jenny pat Rose’s arm soothingly. “Then it’s good I’m takin’ you to the matron, isn’t it?”

“I’m sorry,” Rose said. “But where am I?”

“The Farringham School for Boys, in Farringham, England.”

“Right,” Rose murmured. A school for boys, with sandbag bunkers just outside the grounds, where the maids wore uniforms whose time period Rose could not identify with any particular accuracy but that were certainly not from the twenty-first century. Were she asked to lay bets as to _when_ she was, she thought with a glance at the décor, she’d guess the late nineteenth or early twentieth century.

She thought back to the guns she’d noticed in the bunkers. She’d carried the Doctor’s aversion to guns with her to Torchwood Three, but that hadn’t stopped Pete from requiring her and her team to have a strong familiarity with a variety of weapons. She’d been fairly certain the guns she’d seen earlier had been early machine guns. She wracked her brain trying to come up with the year the machine gun had been invented, then gave up and settled on her best guess still being late nineteenth or early twentieth century.

As Jenny led her through a veritable maze of hallways, Rose began to see boys of varying ages darting through the corridors around them. They took little notice of her, as if the first thing they saw was Jenny in her maid uniform and automatically stopped looking. Rose wasn’t sure if she was grateful for the anonymity, annoyed at the social inequality, or both.

A few twists and turns later, Jenny stopped in front of a door marked “MATRON JOAN REDFERN, NURSE.” She knocked briskly.

“Yes, come in,” they heard dimly, barely audible through the door and over the increasing morning bustle in the hallway. Jenny opened the door and stepped inside the room, holding the door back and motioning for Rose to follow her in.

“Good morning, Matron,” Jenny began. “I hope you’re well.”

“I’m fine, thank you, Jenny.” Joan gazed at Rose in surprise. “Who might you be?” she asked incredulously. Behind her eyes Rose imagined a marquee with all the other questions the woman obviously wanted to ask – _what in God’s name are you wearing, what in God’s name is going on with your hair, why are you bleeding and dirty?_

“Her name is Rose, Matron, but that’s all she can remember.”

Joan gestured Rose to sit on her examining table. Rose did so while Joan turned to a counter and picked up a stethoscope and a thermometer. The items collected, Joan turned back to Rose and handed her the thermometer, which she obediently stuck under her tongue. She mustered a smile for Jenny, who still hovered solicitously at her side.

“You did the right thing to bring Miss Rose here, Jenny, but you can return to your duties now,” Joan said gently. Jenny nodded.

“I hope you feel better soon, Miss,” she said to Rose before sketching a curtsey in Joan’s direction and leaving the room.

“Jenny’s a good girl,” Joan said conversationally to Rose. “A bit overenthusiastic sometimes, but she means well.”

“She was very nice,” Rose said, sounding defensive despite the thermometer in her mouth.

“Of course,” Joan said as she stuck the earpieces of her stethoscope in her ears. Rose shrugged out of her suit jacket as Joan reached toward her to listen to her heartbeat. Joan’s eyebrows went up at least an inch at the sight of the camisole top Rose was wearing underneath. It was tame by Rose’s standards – sleeveless rather than strappy, with only a moderate v-neck and loosely tailored rather than tightly fitted. But judging from the Matron’s outfit, it was scandalous by the standards of whatever time she was in.

Rose’s thoughts continued in that direction as Joan listened to her heartbeat. Rose glanced around the room, fixating with some satisfaction on a calendar on the opposite wall. Her satisfaction dimmed when she realized that the calendar was open to the page for November. Rose might not always be able to name the day of the week when she was in the middle of an investigation, but she usually knew what month it was – and when she’d woken that morning, it had definitely been May, not November. _Well, that settles that_ , she thought glumly. _Definitely option two. Here’s hoping that neither Torchwood nor my family do too badly without me._

Rose felt the matron’s eyes on her and shifted her gaze from the calendar to meet Joan’s inquisitive look. She realized that Joan had asked her a question she had completely not heard. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening, what did you ask?”

“I asked what the first thing you remember is,” Joan said gently. Setting aside the stethoscope, she reached for some antiseptic.

“Oh,” Rose said. “It was… waking up in the fields outside the school, dressed in these strange clothes.” She mentally patted herself on the back for thinking to add that detail. “With no memory,” she continued, wincing slightly as Joan cleaned the cut on her hand. “All I know is that my name is Rose, and that I’m English.”

Joan looked Rose over appraisingly. Her clothes were practically incomprehensible to Joan – the girl wore trousers, but they were clearly not tailored for a man. Her blouse was so… _brief_. Her jacket was like her trousers – a man’s article of clothing, curiously tailored to fit a woman instead. She was carrying a pair of shoes of which Joan had never seen the like, and she carried a bag which appeared very oddly constructed.

But the girl’s hair was healthy and shining underneath the dirt and tangles, her skin was smooth, and on her hands she wore multiple rings, two of which were set with what looked like small diamonds accenting colored stones like rubies and sapphires. And for all that her clothes were odd, the fabrics felt fine underneath Joan’s fingers. Rose must have come from a family that was well enough off. Perhaps they’d be looking for her.

“You don’t remember anything about your family?” She put down the antiseptic and grabbed a bandage, which she began wrapping around Rose’s hand.

Rose pictured her mum, her younger brother, Pete, and Mickey and felt a stab of grief at the knowledge that she most likely wouldn’t see them again. “No,” she finally said, her voice breaking slightly on the word. Joan finished tying off the bandage and patted Rose’s uninjured hand consolingly.

“Perhaps it will come back to you with time.”

Rose smiled a little. “Perhaps.” She sighed. “Of course, I’ve nowhere to go in the meantime.” She put on her best winning smile. “Don’t suppose they’re in need of any help here?”

Joan tilted her head to the side in consideration. “I can ask the headmaster if you’d like. But perhaps rest might be more conducive to recovering your memories.”

Rose shook her head emphatically. “Oh, no. I need to be doing something. I’d go mad just sitting around all day.”

“I can understand that,” Joan said. “I’ll speak to the headmaster.”

“Thank you,” Rose said sincerely.

“If you’ll just wait here, I’ll go get you some clothes.”

“Oh,” Rose said, glancing down at her camisole and slacks. “That would be lovely, thanks.”

With a nod and a smile, Joan left the room. Rose wondered where Joan was going to get her a dress from, what sort of dress it would be, and what it might indicate regarding her prospects in this new time. She wasn’t keen on becoming a maid, regardless of her inquiry regarding possible openings at the school. Of course, considering that Rose had no medical training and probably couldn’t be a teacher at a boys’ school anyway, a position on the cleaning staff might be her only chance here. She wondered where the closest town was.

She jumped down from the examining table. “Ooh,” she exclaimed when her still-bare feet hit the cold wood floor. She grabbed her shoes from the table and slipped them back on. Her toes thus defended against the cold, she shuffled over to the calendar to figure out the exact date. Obligingly, it appeared that the good matron crossed out each day. Provided she wasn’t behind, it was Monday, November tenth, 1913.

“Well, that’s just brilliant, isn’t it?”


	3. Chapter 2

Matron Joan Redfern knocked on the door of the headmaster’s office, hoping he had already returned from his breakfast. At the muffled call for her to come in, she opened the door and slipped inside.

“Good morning, Headmaster.”

“Good morning, Matron Redfern. Is something the matter?”

Joan shook her head. “Not exactly, sir. A young woman in some distress has come to us for help.”

The headmaster rose from his desk. “In distress? How so? Shall I summon the constable?”

“I don’t believe that will be necessary, at least not yet. She has lost her memory, sir, and woke in the fields outside the school.”

“Lost her memory? She doesn’t know who she is?”

“Or how she came to be here, sir.” The headmaster motioned for Joan to take a seat facing his desk, then resumed his own as Joan went on. “I asked her what the last thing she remembers is, and she said it was waking up in the fields and coming here. Though she does say she knows that her name is Rose,” she added.

“Well, that’s something, I suppose.”

“She seems to have a level head on her shoulders,” Joan continued. “She appears to have no intention of falling apart or panicking. She is in need of clothing, sir.”

“Clothing?”

“Yes, she’s dressed very oddly. Are any of Miss Andrews’ clothes left?” she asked, referring to the school’s former librarian. She had left in the middle of the night under mildly scandalous conditions with a former instructor. The position held by the instructor had been filled – by a Mister John Smith, Joan thought with a smile. He was a dear man, and she was looking forward to getting to know him more than she had in his first two months.

“I believe there is still a trunk left in her old rooms,” the headmaster replied. “It was supposed to be sent to the village to be distributed to the less fortunate, but that has yet to happen.”

“Good, I believe they are of a size,” Joan said briskly. “Miss Rose also requested that I ask you if she could take a position here.”

“A position, Matron Redfern?”

“She says she will recover faster if she is not idle, sir.”

“I admire that,” he murmured. “Would she do for the cleaning staff?”

Joan shook her head slowly. “I think she has better breeding than that, sir. Perhaps she can take Miss Andrews’ old position? I know you have not filled it yet.”

The headmaster rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “You get her presentable, and then bring her to speak with me. I shall decide then if there is a place for her here. If not, she is welcome to stay for a few days until a suitable position can be found for her in the village.”

“Very good, sir,” Joan said. She rose from her chair. “Shall I install her in Miss Andrews’ old rooms?”

“Yes, yes,” the headmaster said distractedly, his mind already on other matters. “That’s fine. Just bring her to me before lunch.”

“Yes, sir.” Joan turned and left the headmaster’s office. She turned in the direction of the library, next to which were located the rooms in which the librarian was housed.

\-----

In Joan’s own office, Rose stared at the calendar on the wall. November, 1913. “Absolutely brilliant,” she muttered sarcastically. “What am I going to do in 1913?”

She moved to a narrow window and looked out over the grounds below. She appeared to be looking out over a courtyard on the other side of the school from the side on which she’d arrived. She noted a few boys hurrying away from a low building she decided must be a barn of some kind. They probably had chores to do there before their morning classes, she thought.

She shifted her gaze to look past the courtyard, down the winding road leading away from the school. She pressed her palm against the cold glass and thought of her family. Her mum would be worried sick. Pete would probably create an entire task force in addition to having Rose’s own team search for her. Her little brother wouldn’t understand why she was gone. Mickey would probably be the first to suggest that she’d merely swanned off with the Doctor without bothering to say goodbye.

Somehow, the fact that she hadn’t gone off with the Doctor but was certain that her family would believe that she had was simultaneously a comfort and incredibly painful. Her family would be able to convince themselves, eventually, that she was safe and happy, traveling with someone she loved.

Rose, on the other hand, was now worried that the Doctor would never be able to find her. In the unlikely event that he _did_ manage to get to Pete’s World, he would be headed for London in 2012. Well, she amended mentally, he’d most likely be _aiming_ for something closer to when she’d been trapped there. But he clearly hadn’t made it yet. Still, he’d never think to aim for 1913.

Her eyes filled with tears as she contemplated a life in a time _and_ universe not her own, with neither her family nor the Doctor to keep her company. Taking her uninjured hand from where it was pressed against the glass, she reached under her camisole and drew out something hanging from a long chain. It was a simple, unimpressive-looking key, and it was her dearest possession. The TARDIS key was warm from being next to her skin, and she clenched her hand around it involuntarily.

At the sound of the door opening behind her, Rose hastily wiped her eyes and shoved the TARDIS key back down underneath her camisole. She turned around to see the matron carrying a neatly-folded dress, along with some underclothes, stockings, and a pair of shoes.

“Here you are, Miss Rose.” Joan set the clothes down on the examining table next to Rose’s purse. “These belonged to our former librarian.”

“She didn’t take them with her when she left?” Rose asked curiously, moving forward to pick up the dress.

“She left in rather a hurry,” Joan said. Rose held the shoulders of the dress and let it fall out so she could see it. It was a pale blue color and slightly more fashionable than the matron’s dress, though still a serviceable dress.

“A hurry?” Rose asked.

“Well,” Joan said reluctantly. “I don’t like to gossip, but I suppose it doesn’t hurt to tell you that she and one of our former teachers left, together, in the middle of the night.”

Rose raised her eyebrows. “Romeo and Juliet, were they?”

Joan smiled a little. “Perhaps they were. At any rate, she took only a few items of clothing, and though we meant to get rid of what she left behind, we haven’t yet. I think you’re close to her size.”

“Well, thank you, and thanks to her, wherever she is. Many happy returns,” Rose added, looking at the ceiling as she said it, as though directing the sentiment out into the ether.

“If you’d like to change, I can leave you to it and then come back and help you with the buttons at the back. Oh, I should also tell you, the headmaster has consented to speak with you about filling the position of librarian. We haven’t found a replacement yet.”

“Oh,” Rose exclaimed. “That’s lovely, thank you.” It wasn’t exactly Rose’s idea of a wonderful career, but it was worlds better than being a maid. At this point, she would take good news where she could find it.

Joan gave Rose one last smile and then turned to leave the room and give her some privacy.

Rose set the dress down on the examining table and picked up the undergarments with a sigh. “If I ever get back to my time,” she muttered, “I am never complaining about bras with under wire again.” Muttering incomprehensibly, she began to strip out of her twenty-first century clothes.

\-----

Elsewhere in the school, Jenny and Martha filled their buckets in preparation for the morning’s work of scrubbing the floors.

“The oddest thing happened to me this morning,” Jenny said brightly, ever cheerful even in the morning. “I was down in the corridor behind the kitchen, and I heard someone calling out. It was a woman!”

“A woman?” Martha asked, on the lookout for signs that the aliens searching for the Doctor had found them.

“She said she woke up in the fields and the only thing she remembered was her name! And she was wearing the oddest clothes,” Jenny added. She and Martha hefted their buckets and grabbed their scrub brushes.

“Odd how?”

“She wore trousers and a coat, like a man. Except they weren’t like any suit I’ve seen on any of the teachers here.” The two women made their way to their assigned scrubbing area. “And her clothes were all torn and dirty, like she’d climbed through the bushes or something.”

Martha felt a small bubble of panic form in the pit of her stomach. Something was wrong. Had the Family found them? “Was she injured?” she asked, trying to sound concerned.

“Just some scratches. Nasty one on her hand,” Jenny said, pity in her voice. “I took her to Matron Redfern. She’ll patch her up nicely, I’m sure.”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Martha murmured distractedly. She would have to check out the new arrival somehow. According to what the Doctor had told her, the Family could inhabit any sort of body they wanted; someone claiming to be a disoriented amnesiac was the perfect candidate for an alien covering their origins.

As if her thoughts had summoned him, the Doctor – John Smith, Martha mentally corrected herself – walked by just then.

“Good morning, Sir,” she called to him as he passed.

John slowed his steps and glanced distractedly towards the maids on the floor. “Yes, hullo,” he muttered upon registering that one of the girls was Martha. His thoughts miles away, he continued without stopping to chat or further acknowledging Martha or Jenny.

Jenny watched Martha watch him go. “Head in the clouds, that one.” She smiled slyly at Martha. “Don’t know why you’re so sweet on him.”

“He’s just kind to me, that’s all.” Martha reminded herself yet again at the need to maintain the illusion of teacher and maid. He wasn’t the Doctor right now, and she wasn’t his companion. “Not everyone’s that considerate,” she added. “What with me being…” She trailed off and pointed to her face.

“A Londoner?” Jenny filled in with a grin.

“Exactly,” Martha replied, grinning back. “Good old London town!”

Martha was plotting how to steer the subject back around to the morning’s strange new arrival even as she and Jenny laughed, but her thoughts were interrupted by two of the older boys stopping.

“Ah, now then, you two,” said one.

Martha and Jenny stopped laughing and looked up at the boys. Martha stifled a sigh; she’d long since decided that the worst thing about this whole misadventure was being subservient to a bunch of adolescent stuck-up pinheads.

“You’re not paid to have fun, are you?” the boy continued. “Put a little backbone into it.”

“Yes, sir,” Jenny said meekly. “Sorry, sir.”

The other boy looked at Martha, a mean-spirited twinkle in his eye. “You there, what’s your name again?”

“Martha, sir. Martha Jones.” She suppressed another sigh. She knew what was coming.

“Tell me then, Jones. With hands like those, how can you tell when something’s clean?” He and his friend laughed as though it was the most hilarious joke they’d ever heard. As they walked away, Martha gritted her teeth.

“That’s very funny, sir,” she muttered darkly.

“Careful now,” Jenny said. Her voice held both comfort and warning. “Don’t answer back.”

“I’ll answer back with my bucket over his head.” She went back to scrubbing with renewed vigor, picturing the faces of the boys in the shine of the varnish on the floor.

“Oh, I wish,” Jenny agreed, also returning to the scrubbing. “Just think, though. In a few years’ time, boys like that will be running the country.”

Involuntarily, Martha’s scrubbing slowed and she gazed pensively off into the distance. “Nineteen thirteen. They might not.”


	4. Chapter 3

Outside of her office, Joan Redfern watched the boys scurry to their morning classes. With an eagle eye, she watched for sniffles, coughs, bruises, and limps. The common cold and cases of bullying were her proverbial bread and butter. It wasn’t the most glamorous job, but it was better than a lot of places she could have ended up after her husband’s death.

She caught sight of the new teacher, John Smith. Some things about the position were better than others, she thought as she watched him approach.

“Oh, good morning, Mr. Smith,” she called out as he passed. She raised her voice more than should have been necessary, having learned that Mr. Smith was frequently elsewhere mentally even when he was physically present. He seemed to shake himself out of his thoughts before catching sight of her.

“Oh,” he said. “Hello, Matron. I trust the morning finds you well?”

“Yes, quite well, thank you. Bit of excitement, but things appear to be calming down now.” She smiled warmly, hoping he would continue the conversation.

“Speaking of excitement,” he said, returning her smile, “how was Jenkins?”

“Oh, just a cold,” Joan assured him, thinking back to the student he’d sent her way the day before. “Nothing serious. I think he’s missing his mother more than anything.”

“Aw, we can’t be having that,” John replied good-naturedly.

Joan was about to reply when she heard Rose call from inside her office.

“Nurse Redfern?”

“I think someone needs you,” John said, smiling awkwardly.

“Yes, yes.” Joan glanced back at the door, grasped the handle and opened it halfway. “The source of this morning’s excitement. A young woman in some distress,” she added at John’s raised eyebrow. “She may be staying on here, I’m sure you’ll meet her in time.”

“I hope she's all right,” John said. He looked at the thinning crowd in the hallway. “Sorry to cut this short, but I must be off to class. Napoleonic Wars,” he said cheerfully. “Nothing like the Battle of Waterloo to start the day off right.”

Inside the office, Rose was craning her neck to see around the half-opened door. There was something about the voice of the man to whom Joan was speaking. It wasn’t quite right, but deep in her heart she recognized it. When the man backed up and started away, Rose had to stifle a gasp.

It had only been a quick look, and she told herself she couldn’t be certain, that it was impossible anyway, she shouldn’t hope. But when she combined the oddly familiar voice and the quick flash of unruly brown hair sticking out from under a scholar’s hat, warm brown eyes, and skinny wrists sticking out of the wide sleeves of the teacher’s robes… her heart was already well on its way to being convinced that she’d just seen the Doctor.

She only had a few seconds to collect her thoughts before Joan was shutting the door behind her and coming over to where Rose stood.

“All ready to be buttoned up?” Joan asked cheerfully.

“Y-yes,” Rose stuttered out. She turned her back to Joan to allow her access to the buttons. “Who was that man you were talking to?” she asked, trying to keep her tone conversational.

“That was Mr. Smith,” Joan replied. “He’s one of the teachers here. History. He actually took the position vacated by the young man who ran off with the former librarian.”

“Ooh, so we’re both benefiting from the scandal of it all?” Rose grinned impishly over her shoulder, but Joan seemed unappreciative of the attempt at humor.

“You’re all set,” she said, her voice gone businesslike.

“I’m sorry,” Rose said, doing her best to sound as sincere as possible. She made a mental note to make an attempt to keep her sense of humor a little more tame than usual.

“You’ve been through a lot, I’m sure,” Joan replied, her tone softening a little. “I’ll take you to the library, if you’d like to look around?”

Rose nodded. “That’s fine. I’d like that. When can I speak to the headmaster?”

Joan started out of the door as she answered. “Once we get to the library, I’ll send one of the maids to find out if he’s ready to speak to you.”

Rose grabbed her purse and her clothes from her own time and followed the matron. “Brilliant.” Joan kept up a steady pace and Rose almost felt her dizziness returning. She gritted her teeth in frustration at her weakness. Time travel without a capsule or not, she felt certain she ought to be in better shape than this.

As she followed Nurse Redfern through the corridors, Rose decided that if she were really going to stay at the school for any significant period of time, she might need a map to study just to learn her way around. She had just decided that an illustration of the school was probably located next to the Webster’s entry for “labyrinthine” when the matron stopped abruptly in front of a door labeled “LIBRARY.”

“Here we are,” she said pleasantly. She glanced back at Rose’s wide eyes and gave a small laugh. “Don’t worry,” she said, reading Rose perfectly. “One picks up the general layout fairly quickly.” She opened the door to the library and gestured Rose inside. “Just remember this: when you’re still getting lost, be sure to ask the teachers or the maids for help, not the boys. Lose your authority even the smallest fraction with them, and you’ve lost it all.”

Rose nodded. Dealing with adolescent boys couldn’t be _that_ much more difficult than dealing with aliens intent on taking over the planet.

Joan led Rose further into the library. “It’s a fairly straightforward system, organized using the Dewey Decimal System. Most of the books are non-fiction, though we do have a good selection of classic works of fiction as well. The boys generally use the books in the library, but they are allowed to check out two books at a time to bring back to their rooms.”

Rose nodded. “Sounds reasonable.”

“Why don’t you look around? I’ll send someone to check with the headmaster, and if he’s ready to see you, they’ll take you to him.” She smiled kindly. “If you need me for anything, I’ll be in my office. Any one of the teachers or maids would show you the way back.” She started out, then stopped and turned back. “By the way, if you exit this door and turn right, the rooms you’ll have if you do become our librarian are through the second door you’ll come to.” She reached into a pocket and withdrew a key, which she set on a table. “That’s the key. If you’d like to put your things there, feel free.”

“Thank you, Nurse Redfern.”

She smiled. “Since I can only call you by your first name, it seems only fair that you do the same. I’m Joan.”

“Then thank you, Joan.”

“You’re welcome, Rose.” With that, she left Rose alone in the library.

Rose allowed herself a long sigh, and then sank down into the nearest chair. Had she really seen what she thought she’d seen outside Joan’s office? It was impossible, wasn’t it? Spontaneous time travel was one thing – and Rose vowed she would go over everything she remembered about her morning in an attempt to discern just _how_ spontaneous the time travel actually was. But spontaneous travel across _the Void_? If the Doctor couldn’t travel across the Void on purpose, she highly doubted it was possible to do so involuntarily.

So, if she logically had to still be in the parallel universe, then the man she’d glimpsed outside of Joan’s office _couldn’t_ have been the Doctor. Could he? He hadn’t _spoken_ like the Doctor. But his _voice_ … underneath all the non-Doctorish things about it, she’d recognized it. Even as she tried to keep herself from hoping, part of her mind was cataloguing all the impossible things she’d seen with the Doctor, right down to a planet orbiting a black hole.

Her whirling thoughts were interrupted by a maid, one Rose hadn’t seen before. Rose was mildly surprised to see her dark skin – she was fairly certain that in these times it would have been difficult for someone like her to obtain a position in a snooty place like this one. _Score one for the progressives_ , she thought with satisfaction.

“Excuse me, Miss Rose?” the woman said.

“Yes, that’s me,” Rose replied.

“I’ve come to fetch you to the headmaster.”

“Oh, right.” Rose shook her head slightly, trying to clear it. “If I could just drop my things in the librarian’s rooms? Joan – Matron Redfern – said that I could.”

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

Rose gave no outward sign of it, but her former distraction dissipated at the maid’s word choice. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“I’m Martha, mum. Martha Jones.”

Rose spent the time spent taking her things to the librarian’s quarters surreptitiously sizing up the maid. There was something _off_ about her, Rose was certain. Especially since Rose had the oddest feeling that the maid had spent the same time sizing up Rose.

“Begging your pardon,” Martha had said as they left the librarian’s quarters. “But Jenny told me that you can’t remember anything?”

“Nothing,” Rose replied. “Just my name.”

“Rose,” Martha said. Which, she thought, just _happened_ to be the name of the Doctor’s lost companion. Perhaps the Family had discovered something of the Doctor’s story with regards to Rose, and was trying to use it against him.

Martha had only seen one picture of Rose, and she’d only seen it once. She’d found it tucked into a book in the TARDIS library. When she’d shown it to the Doctor and asked him who the woman was, he’d seemed to close in on himself. “It’s Rose,” he’d said curtly. Then he’d tucked the photo into one of his bottomless pockets and never spoken of it or looked at it in front of Martha again.

Though he’d been able and willing to tell stories about Rose sometimes, other times it was almost impossible for him to so much as speak her name, let alone deal with any stronger reminders.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” Martha continued, “what is the last thing you remember?”

“I’m surprised Jenny didn’t tell you,” Rose said with a laugh. Inside, her instincts screamed for her to watch her step. What if her original theory of kidnapping hadn’t been so far off after all? What if option one and option two weren’t mutually exclusive? But in this case, it couldn’t hurt to continue to spread her cover story. “I woke up this morning in the fields outside the grounds. And that’s the beginning of my memory.”

The two women continued on in silence, each of them dead certain that the other was hiding something, but completely at a loss as to how to go about figuring out what.

“Well, here we are, then,” Martha said when they reached the headmaster’s office. She knocked on the door and opened it when the headmaster called out.

“Miss Rose to see you, sir.”

“Yes, yes, send her in.”

“Good luck,” Martha said to Rose. With a quick curtsey, she turned to leave. On her way through the hallways, she glanced at the clock. It looked like she had time for a little field trip. She hurried to her rooms to grab her coat and hat.


	5. Chapter 4

After Martha left and shut the door behind her, Rose took a deep breath and sat down across from the headmaster when he gestured for her to do so.

“So, Miss… Rose, was it?”

“Yes sir.”

“You don’t remember your last name?”

Rose paused. Adopting a look of concentration, as though she were desperately searching blank memory banks, she considered admitting to her last name. If she had merely been drawn back in time, there wasn’t much harm giving the name Tyler could do. Of course, it could make it more obvious that she didn’t belong if anyone who chose to try to research her origins had two names rather than just one to search on. Plus, if she had been pulled back in time purposely, perhaps keeping her last name a secret would help stall anyone who might be looking to see where she landed.

“No,” she finally said. “I don’t. All I remember is Rose.”

“Hmm.” He tapped his fingers on his desk, then folded his hands, resting his chin on his bent knuckles. “How did you find the library?”

For a split second, Rose thought she was going to be unable to stop herself from making a quip about not finding it without a map and a trusty native guide. But she bit her tongue and reminded herself yet again to at least _try_ to act like she belonged. “I found it a fine library, sir. I haven’t had that much time to fully explore, but at first glance it looks like a fine selection.”

“Have you any… well, I suppose you wouldn’t know if you had any experience in libraries or working with children, would you?”

Rose shook her head apologetically. “No, sir. I’m sorry, sir. But… I felt comfortable in the library.” She tried a small smile. “Being around the books, it felt familiar.” In her mind, she crossed her fingers. She hadn’t had _time_ to read much of anything in the last five years. Of course, she’d waded through enough paperwork in that same amount of time to put the number of pages contained within the school’s library to shame. She figured it would all even out in the end.

“Well, Miss Rose, I must admit that your arrival is convenient, if unconventional. We’ve had trouble filling the position in the middle of the semester like this.”

“I see,” she said. She hoped his words were as promising as they sounded. She’d liked the look of the simple rooms next to the library; if nothing else they’d do nicely while she found a more permanent solution to her predicament. And the library was on the cozy side.

“You look like a good girl,” the headmaster continued. “A bit young, perhaps.” Rose bit back the instinctive _I’m twenty-five_ exclamation. “But as I said, we are in a bit of a predicament. The library is less organized than it should be, books aren’t getting put away in a timely fashion… we need someone in there.” He dropped his hands to the desk and sat up straighter. Rose unconsciously mirrored this change in posture. “As such, I would like to offer you the position on a trial basis. At the end of the semester, I will evaluate your work, and then either assist you in finding a situation elsewhere or offer you a permanent position.”

Rose allowed herself a wide smile. “That’s wonderful, Headmaster. Thank you very much.”

The headmaster nodded absently and shifted some papers. “You will be provided room and board for the duration of your employment. Given the unique circumstances of your arrival, I have determined that rather than pay you a salary in addition to that, during the trial period, the school will assist you in the purchase of clothing and other such essentials. As no one is free to accompany you to the village at this time, you may feel free to continue to make use of the items left by Miss Andrews. The trunk is being moved to your rooms as we speak.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Should we choose to hire you on a permanent basis, a salary will be determined.” He glanced up from his papers. “Is this satisfactory?”

“Yes, sir. Thank you,” she said again, starting to feel foolish.

“Well, that’s settled, then. Meals are at six-thirty am, noon, and six pm.” He checked his watch. “You’ve a couple hours until lunch. You’re welcome to return to your rooms if you’d like, spend time in the library, or explore the grounds.”

“If I’m not feeling up to lunch,” Rose began hesitantly. She had a feeling that lunch entailed a large dining hall filled with loud people. She might not be in any particularly delicate condition health-wise, but she didn’t think such a situation would be very conducive to thinking things through.

“Teachers and staff are always permitted to visit the kitchen,” the headmaster said. He gave her a rare smile. “Though if you plan on regularly doing so, I suggest you cultivate a friendship with the cook, lest you find the cupboards bare.”

Rose smiled. “Thank you for the advice.” She stood up and turned to go, hesitating when she reached the door. “I’m sorry, Headmaster, but is there anyone who can-“

“Show you back to your rooms?” he interrupted her. “I should think so.” He rose from his chair and led Rose out into the hallway.

A short time later, yet another maid had shown Rose back to her rooms. She took a few minutes to go through the small supply of clothing in the trunk. There were two more dresses – one was fancier than the other clothes, more like a party dress – as well as a small selection of skirts and blouses, some underclothes, and a pair of shoes that matched the fancier dress. A cursory look in the wardrobe turned up enough hangars and drawers to accommodate her small selection of items.

The monotonous domesticity of the task was oddly soothing, and Rose let her mind empty for the brief time it took her to hang her new clothes. After hanging the last blouse, Rose closed the wardrobe doors and sighed in satisfaction. If nothing else, she had control over where she put her clothes. She made a face at the thought.

“Rose Tyler, when you’re drawing your power from organizing a wardrobe, it’s either time to make sure said wardrobe doesn’t lead to a magic land or get a life,” she said firmly. “Of course, talking to yourself doesn’t bode well, either.” She shrugged. “To the library, then.”

Rose picked up the key to her rooms and headed out the door, locking it behind her before continuing on into the library.

She wandered aimlessly up and down the aisles, running her fingers over the shelves and book spines. This was certainly not where she expected to end up when she’d gotten out of bed in the morning. But if there was anything Rose’s life had taught her, it was the importance of being adaptable.

Her thoughts turned to the seemingly out-of-place maid, Martha, and the glimpse Rose had caught of a man who had reminded her strongly of the Doctor – Mr. Smith, Joan had called him. The Doctor had often used the name John Smith when he required a name rather than a title on one of their adventures. In fact, she had even seen him use it while disguising himself as a teacher – that was the adventure with the Krillitanes and Sarah Jane Smith, she thought with a small smile. Sarah Jane had turned out to be quite nice, and Rose had gained a little brainpower from the chips. All in all, not a bad time.

She continued slowly walking the aisles, lost in her thoughts. If she allowed herself to believe that she had truly seen a man who looked and vaguely sounded like the Doctor, she had to consider the possibilities of what that could mean. He could be a normal human, a visual and auditory echo of her universe’s Doctor, minus the Time Lord superpowers. He could be a parallel version of the Doctor, but she’d worked for Torchwood for five years and had found absolutely no mention of anyone called the Doctor in any of their records.

Even as she shied away from letting herself _think_ about the possibility that the man called Mr. Smith could be her real, actual Doctor, she turned into the history section and was faced with the man himself, standing on one of the small ladders in order to reach a book on the top shelf. He had apparently let himself into the library while she’d been wandering, oblivious to the fact that she was there.

Rose gasped and stopped short. Startled by the noise, John nearly fumbled the book he’d been retrieving, Aitchison-Price's _Definitive Account of Mafeking_. Clutching the book with the tips of his fingers, he looked down for the noise’s source.

“Dear God,” he whispered upon seeing Rose. He did drop the book then. Unthinking, he lunged after it, lost his footing, and landed in a heap at the foot of the ladder.

Rose acted purely on instinct, dropping instantly to his side, hands feeling frantically for injuries. “Are you all right?” she asked breathlessly as he sat up dazedly.

“Are you real?” he breathed. Dazed from the fall, visions of the Perfect Rose from his impossible dreams hovered in front of and merged with the sight of the woman kneeling in front of him. The fact that she was running her hands over him as if she knew him didn’t help him sort out dream from reality, either.

“Am I real?” she was saying, her voice tinged with hysteria repressed into nervous laughter. “What about you?” _It’s him, it’s him, it’s him_ , her heart was screaming. _It can’t be_ , her head screamed just as loudly.

Suddenly, he grabbed her wrist, halting her nervous inventory of his health. Her hand rested on the right side of his chest. “I dreamed of you in impossible places, impossible times,” he murmured, still dazed.

Rose was about to reply, was beginning to believe that it really _was_ the Doctor, when she realized something. She pressed her palm more firmly against the man’s chest, and her heart sank into her stomach. There was no heartbeat pulsing underneath her fingers. This man, this Mr. Smith, had only one heart.

He wasn’t the Doctor. He couldn’t be. And yet… “What do you mean?” she asked softly, searching his eyes for some hint of her Doctor. “What impossible places?”

John seemed caught by her gaze, until he shook his head and blinked rapidly. He seemed to realize the inappropriateness of their position, him still half-sprawled on the floor and her with her hand resting on his chest, fingers curling slightly into the wool of his suit coat. He released her wrist and shifted away. “I’m sorry,” he began, feeling the distinct urge to ramble. “I hit my head on the ladder, I think. I was confused for a moment.” He scrambled to his knees, then to his feet. “I apologize for my forwardness with regards to your… person.”

Rose had to stifle another hysterical giggle. If nothing else, Mr. Smith’s ramble lent strong credence to her theory of his being a human echo of her universe’s Doctor. He offered her a hand to help her to her feet, which she accepted.

“I’m John Smith,” he said, shaking her hand and gazing into her eyes.

“I’m Rose,” she replied. “Rose T-“ she stopped herself, abruptly remembering that she wasn’t supposed to be able to remember her last name. She watched John’s face carefully to see if he caught her odd behavior, but he appeared to have been distracted by her first name alone.

“You’re Rose.” He had yet to let go of her hand, and Rose felt no particular need to pull away.

“That’s me.”

“But you don’t…” Suddenly he dropped her hand and almost seemed to blush. “Sorry, I’m doing it again. It’s just… you remind me of someone.”

“For whatever it’s worth,” Rose said quietly, “you remind me of someone, too.”

“Memory’s a funny thing, you know. Plays tricks on you all the time. Places you played in as a child were bigger then, or so it seems, but it’s only because you were smaller. And bits and pieces of all sorts of things can coalesce into one person or thing and suddenly you’re getting déjà vu from a complete stranger.”

“And falling off ladders,” Rose put in, interrupting the latest ramble.

“Er, yes,” John muttered, rubbing his sore head. “Perhaps I should have Matron Redfern take a look at me.”

Rose was struck with the sudden and intense desire to keep John Smith all to herself. She told herself it was irrational, that he wasn’t the Doctor no matter how much he continued to remind her of him. She told herself she was in enough trouble being stuck in 1913 with nothing but borrowed clothes and a job in which her position was tenuous at best. She’d do better not to add a man into the equation.

Rose had always had trouble listening to herself when herself was attempting to be the voice of reason.

“I have some rudimentary training,” she said. “Enough to check for bumps, bruises, and concussions, anyway. We don’t have to bother Joan. Er, Matron Redfern.”

John seemed to brighten a little at this. “Perhaps I can make up for falling at your feet and imposing on you to provide medical assistance by taking tea with you? My quarters have a study with a very pleasant view.”

Rose grinned. “That sounds lovely.”

“Tea it is, then,” John said, offering Rose an elbow. She hooked her wrist over the crook of his elbow and nodded.

“Tea.” They started walking towards the door. “Oh!” Rose exclaimed. “Your book!” She tugged him back to the ladder and snatched the book up from the floor. “All that trouble, it would be a shame if you forgot this.”

“Oh yes, I was going to lend it to one of my students. Latimer,” he added, and Rose sensed yet another ramble coming on. “Good young chap, very intelligent. Quiet for it, though, keeps his head down around the other boys. I suspect he does more assignments than his own, though.”

“What book is it?” Rose asked, steering John toward the card catalog. “It’s only, I’m the temporary-and-possibly-permanent new librarian. So I really ought to make you check it out properly, hadn’t I?”

“Oh, were you in Matron Redfern’s office this morning?” He followed her lead, and felt oddly bereft when she dropped his arm to rummage through the desk next to the card catalog. Withdrawing a checkout log, she noted down the proper information and then handed John a slip of paper.

“I was,” she told him. “She was very kind.”

The book duly checked out, John and Rose made their way into the hallway. John flagged down a passing housemaid, told her he’d had a small accident, and instructed her to retrieve some first aid supplies from Matron Redfern and then have tea for two brought to his quarters.

“Have Cook send up some sandwiches as well,” he added. “I think the lump on my head qualifies me to skip the dining hall this afternoon.” He turned to Rose. “If that’s all right with you, Miss Rose.”

She nodded, and John sent the maid on her way. “This morning,” John began, “Matron Redfern mentioned only that you were in some distress. She did not elaborate. May I be so bold as to enquire as to the nature of this distress?”

“You may,” Rose said with a smile. She paused and met John’s inquisitive gaze with a pointed one of her own.

“Ah, yes,” he said after a moment. “What, pray tell, was the nature of this distress?”

“This morning I woke up in the fields outside with no memory of who I am or where I came from. All I know is that my name is Rose.”

Aside from his dreams of the Doctor and his impossible adventures, John was not a fanciful man. But this woman, this Rose, who so resembled his own Perfect Rose… she appeared out of nowhere, with no memories. Could dreams become reality? He scarcely dared to even think it. The Doctor had loved Rose, so very much, and then he’d lost her. John had never dreamed of how, but at some point she had stopped appearing. The Doctor had become sadder and angrier than before, and then Martha had begun figuring in the dreams instead.

“Well,” he said aloud, “let us hope that the worst that befell you was a bump to the head.”

Rose refrained from informing him that her head was bumpless. Besides, her supposed memory loss was not a concern to her, and she had little to no desire to waste time discussing it or its hypothetical causes. “Indeed,” she murmured. “Tell me more about yourself, Mr. Smith.”

They continued companionably through the corridors, John nattering on about everything and nothing in particular. Rose watched him carefully, half of her mind searching for Doctorish mannerisms and the other half simply enchanted by _John_. The man was so endearingly _scattered_. He jumped from one recollection to another with very little obvious rhyme or reason.

By the time they’d finished their leisurely walk to John’s rooms, the efficient maid was only minutes behind them with a small collection of medical supplies and a short list of instructions for Rose from Joan about how to check for concussion and clean wounds. Just in case the details of whatever knowledge she might have were fuzzy due to her amnesia, Joan’s note said.

Rose felt slightly foolish – claiming to have even rudimentary medical training wasn’t exactly in line with amnesia. Then again, she could argue it was instinctual, rather than true memories. John didn’t seem to care, though, so Rose decided she’d think about it later, if and when it came up.

John sat down at a table in the study. “All right then, Miss Rose. Or should I call you Nurse Rose?”

Rose laughed. “Just Rose is fine.” John looked slightly taken aback, and Rose mentally kicked herself. She was so comfortable with John that she’d begun to forget the need to blend in. What would her team back in 2012 say? “Or Miss Rose,” she added hastily. “It’s just propriety seems sort of hollow when I can’t even remember my last name.”

John nodded slowly. “Perhaps… when it’s just you and me… you can be Rose and I’ll be John.”

Rose allowed a shy smile to creep across her face. “Perfect,” she said. Still smiling, she rattled Joan’s instruction list. “All right, John. Here we go.”


	6. Chapter 5

After dropping Rose off at the headmaster’s office, Martha hurried to the small room she shared with Jenny. The other girl was already there, puttering about before returning to her chores. She looked up at Martha in surprise when she snatched up her coat and hat and immediately turned to go.

“Oi, where are you off to? We’ve more chores to do!”

“I’m sorry, Jenny, I’ve got to take a walk. I promise I’ll be back soon, there’s just something I need to check.” She hurried toward the door.

“Something you need to check _where_?” Jenny called after Martha. But she was already gone.

Jenny clucked her tongue in good-natured disapproval. “She better hope all those plans she has for a month from now turn out,” Jenny muttered. “Else she’ll be out of a job with nowhere to go but the poor house.”

Martha hurried through the hallways and out into the cold mid-morning sun. She retrieved her bicycle from a shed and hitched up her skirts. Propriety be damned; what Martha needed now was _speed_. She pedaled as hard as she could, hampered as she was by the dress. Whether the Family had found them and one of its members was disguising itself as Rose Tyler or if Rose Tyler herself had somehow ended up not only returning to her proper universe but also ending up exactly where the Doctor just _happened_ to be… well, either way, Martha needed to visit the TARDIS.

A short time that felt like an eternity later, she arrived at the barn where the Doctor had programmed the TARDIS to park. It was tucked into a corner, running on emergency power so as to avoid detection. Martha smiled as the TARDIS first came into view, but her face fell once she’d let herself in.

“Hello,” she said softly. Then she shook her head. “Look at me, I’m talking to a machine. The next month could _not_ go by too quickly.”

She took a moment to make a few slow circles around the console. Just being in the familiar confines of the TARDIS was a comfort. Martha supposed it would have been more of a comfort if she wasn’t continually reminded of the desperation on the Doctor’s face when he realized that the Family would never stop following them and that only thing to do was to wait them out. Or the determination in his eyes when he explained that he was going to turn himself into a human using something he called a Chameleon Arch. The way he’d held the fob watch up to her face and told her it was him. The look on his face when she’d asked him if it would hurt.

The sound of his screams as the Arch did its job.

Martha shuddered and stopped in front of the console screen. She hit a button and a recorded video message from the Doctor began to play.

“This working?” He tapped the camera, and Martha cracked a small, fleeting smile as the video Doctor continued. “Martha. Before I change, here’s a list of instructions for when I’m human. One, don’t let me hurt anyone. We can’t have that, but you know what humans are like.”

Martha sighed slightly at that. She didn’t think she’d ever understand how the Doctor could simultaneously think so little of humans and love them so much.

“Two,” continued the image on the screen, “don’t worry about the TARDIS. I’ll put it on emergency power so they can’t detect it. Just let it hide away. Four, no, wait a minute… three. No getting involved in big historical events. Four, you. Don’t let me abandon you.”

Martha fast-forwarded the recording. She didn’t really _need_ to watch it again, she essentially had the whole thing memorized. She and the Doctor – John Smith, now – had already been in 1913 for two months. The first week of that two months had been horrible for Martha. John Smith took one look at her and thanked her for her continued devotion to his family – such wonderful dedication from a housemaid! Martha had missed the Doctor terribly, and spending time with John had made it even harder. She’d come to the TARDIS every day and watched his message just to hear his voice.

She stopped the message on his last point. “And twenty-three. If anything goes wrong, if they find us, Martha… then you know what to do.” Martha unconsciously nodded at the screen. “Open the watch,” the Doctor finished. “Everything I am is kept safe in there. Now, I’ve put a perception filter on it so that the human me won’t think anything of it. To him, it’s just a watch.” His face went very serious. “But don’t open it unless you have to. Because once it’s open, then the Family will be able to find me. It’s all down to you, Martha. Your choice.” He got up and walked off the screen, but moments later his head popped in from the side. “Oh, and… thank you.”

The message ended, and Martha heaved another sigh. “I wish you’d come back,” she whispered. The Doctor did not miraculously reappear on the screen. He never did.

“How am I supposed to know, Doctor? How am I supposed to tell the difference between the great Rose Tyler and the Family in disguise?”

Still grumbling, Martha grabbed a torch from the console and left the console room, venturing further into the TARDIS. The lighting was dim in the corridors, thanks to the ship being on emergency power. Martha walked briskly for a time, then slowed down when she thought she was getting close to her destination. It was room she’d never set foot in before, though she’d seen the door – and been warned away from it by the Doctor.

She stopped in front of an unremarkable and unmarked door. Rose Tyler’s door. Drawing in a fortifying breath, Martha reached for the doorknob and pushed the door open.

The room was cluttered, but pleasantly so. The kind of clutter that told you that the room was lived in by a vibrant person whose life was too busy or exciting to worry about making sure every sock made it into the hamper or that every picture frame was perfectly straight. Martha expected there to be a thick layer of dust over everything, but she was surprised to find the dustiness more suited to a two-month period without tending to than the length of time Rose had been gone.

Perhaps that explained where the Doctor went when Martha couldn’t find him for hours at a time.

Martha felt somewhat guilty. She knew she was invading a space that was personal and private for not just Rose, but the Doctor as well. But there was nothing for it – she needed to find a picture of Rose. If the Rose back at the school looked the same as the Rose in the pictures, then Martha figured it was a lot more likely that she was the real deal. If the Family had been _chasing_ Martha and the Doctor and didn’t know what _they_ looked like – a key factor in the “hide as a human” plan – then it seemed very unlikely that they’d have been able to find out not only that Rose Tyler had existed, but also what she looked like.

The lighting in Rose’s room was even dimmer than the lighting in the corridors, with most of it coming from the corridor itself. Martha flicked on the torch she’d brought with her from the console room and shone the light around the room. She caught sight of a number of framed photos sitting on top of a dresser across the room.

She made her way to them and picked up the first, shining the torchlight towards it. A young black man, an older blonde woman, and a younger blonde woman smiled brightly at the camera. They were standing outside the old Henrik’s department store. Martha slid the photo out of its frame and flipped it over. _Mickey, Mum, and me, outside the shop_ was scrawled on the back in feminine print. She tucked the first picture into her pocket and picked up the next.

In this, the same young blonde woman – Rose, Martha acknowledged – stood with a middle-aged man Martha didn’t recognize. His hair was cropped extremely short. He had a big nose and big ears that seemed at odds with the serious look on his face. Rose was turned mostly away from the camera, holding the lapels of the man’s battered leather jacket. From what Martha could see of her face, she appeared to be beaming up at the man, possibly in mid-laugh. She wondered why he was so serious in the face of Rose’s glee and slipped this photo out of its frame as well.

“What?” she exclaimed in surprise. The caption, in the same print as before, read _The Doctor (in full Oncoming Storm mode) refusing to smile for Mum_. Martha flipped the picture back over. “How is that even possible?” she muttered. “It doesn’t look a thing like him…” She wondered if the Chameleon Arch could also change your appearance without turning you into another species. She put the puzzling picture back into the frame and replaced it on the dresser before picking up the next one.

The Doctor – the _real_ Doctor, Martha thought – stood behind Rose, his arms wrapped around her shoulders. Rose had reached up and hooked her hands over his arms, holding them in place. She was obviously leaning back against him, and her head was tilted so that it rested against his chin. They were both grinning from ear to ear. Martha was fairly certain she had never seen the Doctor smile quite like that. She hesitated slightly, then slipped this last photo out of its frame and flipped it over. It was simply labeled _Us_ , in a different handwriting. More masculine. The Doctor’s, Martha thought numbly.

She tucked the photo into her pocket along with the first. She would apologize to the Doctor for going into the room and pilfering the photos when he was the Doctor again. And if Miss Rose the new librarian turned out to be the famous Rose Tyler, well, Martha would apologize to her as well.

Other than the photos, Martha left the room exactly as she found it. She made her way back to the console room. With one last wistful look at the screen, she walked down the ramp and out the door, which she carefully locked behind her. A glance at the sun told her she had better pedal just as hard on the return trip as she had on her way to the TARDIS in order to make it back to the school in time to start the pre-lunch chores she shared with Jenny.

One bumpy bicycle ride later, Martha tried to slow her breathing as she rushed through the school to her room. Before leaving the room to find Jenny, she took the photos of Rose from the pocket of her coat and tucked them into one of her apron pockets. Didn’t want to leave them lying about where someone could find them, she thought.

She reached the kitchen in record time to find Jenny already there, putting the finishing touches on a tea tray. It was laden with tea for two and a selection of sandwiches. Martha spared it little attention.

“Sorry,” she said to Jenny, reaching for a broom. “Didn’t mean to be late.”

“It’s all right,” Jenny said cheerfully. “I haven’t even started yet. Cook told me to put together this tray for your Mr. Smith.”

Martha looked over at Jenny in surprise. “He isn’t having lunch in the hall with everyone else?”

“No,” Jenny replied, excitement coloring her tone. “Apparently he had a bit of an accident.” She continued arranging the sandwiches on the tray. She looked at Martha and laughed at the stricken look on her face. “Don’t look so panicked!”

“What kind of accident?”

“I heard that he fell off a ladder.”

“He _what_?”

Jenny opened her mouth to respond, but Martha was off like a rocket, presumably towards Mr. Smith. “You could at least wait and take the tray!” Jenny called after her, though she knew it was fruitless to do so. Sighing, she reached for the silverware and began arranging it with the tea things.


	7. Chapter 6

Upstairs, Rose was carefully cleaning a cut on the back of John’s head using some antiseptic and gauze Joan had sent up with the maid. On the table next to John lay a stethoscope and some bandages.

“Ow!” John exclaimed, more of a whine than a word. He fidgeted like a little boy.

“Stop it,” Rose said, stifling a laugh. “You’re worse than my little b-“ she cut herself off, remembering her amnesia just slightly too late. She had to be careful. Being around John caused her to drop her guard. “Children,” she finished. “You’re worse than children.”

John twisted around to glare at Rose sulkily, the stinging having distracted him from her slip of the tongue. “Because it _hurts_!”

Rose was making good-natured _tsk_ noises when Martha burst into the room like a whirlwind.

“Is he all right?” she asked, breathless from running across the school.

“Martha,” John said, his tone firm but colored by an undertone of amused tolerance. “It’s hardly good form to enter my study without knocking.”

Martha narrowly avoided letting out an exasperated growl. “Sorry, right, yeah,” she ground out instead, turning around. She went to the doorway and gave an exaggerated knock on the door. Rose raised her eyebrows at the display. As a twenty-first century London girl, she identified with the urge for sarcasm. But in 1913, she thought, such behavior was a lot less likely to be present in a young black maid. Martha rushed back into the room. “But is he all right?” She shifted her beseeching look from Rose to John. “They said you fell off a ladder!”

John suddenly found the floor wildly fascinating. “No, it was just a tumble, is all.”

Rose grinned. “His head was in the clouds, and then it was on the floor.”

John’s head snapped up. “If you hadn’t startled me,” he began in an affronted voice.

“Did you take him to the matron?” Martha interrupted, returning her attention to Rose.

“No,” Rose replied, straightening up to her full height in reaction to the accusation in Martha’s tone. “I checked him over myself.”

“You’re just a librarian! Did you check for concussion?”

“I had instructions from Joan,” Rose said hotly. “And while I may not be able to remember the details of my life, I do remember basic first aid.”

Martha glanced between Rose’s annoyed face and John’s stern one. “Right. Sorry. I’ll just… tidy your things,” she muttered, needing an excuse to stay in the room and observe Rose’s behavior with John.

“I was just telling Rose – _Miss_ Rose,” John corrected himself, “about my, um… about my dreams.”

Martha looked up from the shelf she had begun to tidy. He’d barely even told _her_ about his dreams. Mostly just the parts in which she featured, or of particularly death-defying hijinks. She had also caught a few glimpses of the journal in which he wrote and illustrated the things he remembered. But other than that, he’d kept strangely quiet with regards to the dreams – especially considering how loquacious he was in most other cases.

“They are quite remarkable tales,” he continued, twisting around to look at Rose, who was still standing behind him.

They were interrupted by a knock on the door from Jenny, who was bringing the tea tray John had requested from the kitchen. Rose hurriedly collected the medical supplies Joan had sent and stuffed them into a battered medical bag, which she then set on the floor next to her chair. She sat down, giving Jenny space to set down the tray.

“Is there anything else I can get for you, sir?” Jenny asked brightly.

John shook his head. “No, thank you.”

“Very good, sir.” With a quick curtsey, Jenny took her leave. On her way out of the room, she sent Martha a stern look. _Don’t overstep_ , it said, even though Jenny knew it was probably futile.

“You were about to tell me about your dreams,” Rose said after Jenny was gone and John had solicitously began pouring the tea.

“Yes!” he replied. “It’s really very extraordinary. Milk and sugar?” he asked, having poured Rose’s tea.

“Yes, that would be lovely,” Rose replied. “Two lumps, please.”

The tea taken care of, John took a fortifying sip before continuing. “I keep imagining that I’m someone else.”

“Really?” Rose said. Martha had been watching her, and she couldn’t be certain, but she thought that Rose’s gaze on John had sharpened somehow on the revelation. Martha moved to another part of the room where she had a better view of Rose’s face.

“Yes, as I said, it’s extraordinary. I dream that I’m hiding from someone – or something that’s chasing me. And, well… almost every night…” He trailed off and laughed nervously. “This is going to sound silly.”

“Tell me,” Rose said, her voice suddenly intense.

“I dream, quite often, that I have two hearts.”

Rose froze momentarily. He dreamed he had two hearts. Rose had already felt the absence of a second heart back in the library, but she remembered the stethoscope that Joan had included with the first aid supplies. Setting down her tea, Rose picked up the medical bag. “I can be the judge of that,” she said, forcing a smile. She pulled the stethoscope out of the bag and rose from her chair.

John smiled and held his suit coat aside, giving Rose better access to his chest. She very carefully placed the stethoscope against the left side of his chest and took a moment to listen to the steady, oddly comforting beat of his heart. Then she moved her hand to the right side of his chest. Confirming what she already knew, there was no beat echoing in her ears.

“I can confirm the diagnosis,” she said, unable to keep the sadness completely out of her face or voice. “Just one heart. Singular.” She sat back down glumly. Martha swallowed compulsively and reached into her apron pocket to touch the photographs hidden there. She was beginning to think that she would have to accept that this was the _real_ Rose Tyler, however impossible the Doctor had seemed to think her return from the parallel universe should have been.

John appeared oblivious to Rose’s sadness. “As I said, very silly.” He took a sip of tea and glanced pensively back towards his bedchamber, where he kept his journal and supplies for writing. “I have… written down some of these dreams in the form of fiction.”

Rose looked up, her gaze looking sharper once again. Martha looked at John in surprise. The few glimpses she’d caught of the journal had been inadvertent on John’s part. As far as Martha knew, he’d never shown them to anyone.

“Not that it would be, um… of any interest.”

“I’d be very interested,” Rose replied instantly. This man who looked so much like the Doctor dreamed about having two hearts and had dreamed about someone who looked like Rose – in impossible places, he’d said. They sounded like very Doctorish dreams. If he’d written them down, then Rose wanted to see the results.

“Well…” John hesitated. “I’ve never shown it to anyone before.”

Rose tilted her head and smiled encouragingly. “Really, I am intrigued.”

“I suppose it can’t hurt,” John muttered, rising from his chair and striding quickly to the desk in his bedchamber. He returned carrying a black leather-bound journal, which he handed to Rose with an embarrassed look on his face. He sat back down in his chair opposite Rose. She opened the front cover and read the title he’d inked in flowing handwriting, which Rose thought looked similar to how the Doctor’s script might have appeared had he learnt to write during the time John would have.

“A Journal of Impossible Things,” she said out loud. She turned the page and nearly gasped. Martha saw the shock in Rose’s wide eyes and moved closer, trying to see what was on the page. It was covered in both writing and inked drawings, like the pages she remembered from her earlier brief looks. The drawings here were of the TARDIS console and the Gallifreyan displays on the monitors.

Rose traced her fingers lightly over the illustration of the console, feeling a stab of pain. Oh, she missed the TARDIS. She may have only traveled with the Doctor for a year, but the TARDIS had become her home almost immediately. She turned the pages slowly. The picture of the child Jamie, still stuck in his gas mask, reminded Rose of the London Blitz and had her thoughts turning to Jack. She fought to keep tears from welling in her eyes.

“Oh, just look…” she whispered. Martha watched her like a hawk. At the sight of a drawing of Dalek, Martha saw the fear and loathing flash briefly through Rose’s eyes. “Such… imagination,” Rose managed, glancing up at John. She somehow managed to smile at him, though she didn’t know how. Her life, or at least the best parts of it, was all chronicled on these pages, and John didn’t even know. John clearly had subconscious memories of being the Doctor. He _looked_ almost exactly like the Doctor. What Rose couldn’t understand was how those things could be undeniably true and yet she could be so convinced that he absolutely _wasn’t_ the Doctor. He didn’t speak the same as the Doctor, and he walked differently. When he looked at her, his eyes still shone, but it was a different sort of shine. And most of all, she’d said it herself – he had one heart. Singular. _Not_ the Doctor.

She continued turning pages, recognizing the Moxx of Balhoon, the shop window dummies that had been the start of her adventures, and the clockwork robots from the abandoned space ship. “It’s wonderful,” she said, her voice nearly breaking on the word. Then she turned a page and was unable to hold back her gasp. Her shocked gaze flew to John’s serious face.

There on the page was a sketch of her face. “John…” she said breathlessly. Martha backed up, suddenly feeling guilty for being there, but unwilling to leave.

“I thought she was just an invention,” he said quietly, staring into Rose’s wide eyes. “I thought she was a character. I called her Rose.”

Rose found herself unable to continue looking into the Doctor’s eyes when someone else’s emotions were displayed there, and she looked back at her picture. “Perfect Rose” it said at the bottom. Rose felt tears well in her eyes at the number of times _she keeps walking away_ was written. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

“What was that?” John asked.

“It says she keeps walking away,” Rose said, her voice strained.

“Yes,” John replied. “She seems to disappear later on.”

Rose turned the page and was faced with a quartet of Cybermen. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, turning the page again before opening them. Now she smiled. Here was the TARDIS again.

“Ah, that’s the box, the blue box,” John said excitedly. He jumped from his seat and stood beside Rose, leaning down to point at the sketch in the corner – _magic box_ , it said next to the picture. “It’s always there,” he added. “Like a… a magic carpet, this funny little box that transports me to far away places.”

Rose idly wondered what the TARDIS would think of being called a magic carpet. “How far away?” she asked quietly. _To the end of the world_ , she thought. _And beyond_.

“Mmm, very. Sometimes I dream that it can even travel in time!” Rose looked up at him and he smiled. “Think how magical life would be if things like this were true.”

“If only,” Rose said wistfully.

“It’s just a dream,” John said, finally seeming to notice the extent of Rose’s distress. “Certainly your appearance in it is quite a coincidence, but I wouldn’t worry.” He patted her shoulder reassuringly. “These monsters are just… just nightmares. They’re not even yours,” he added.

Rose forced a nod. “Of course,” she said. He had no idea how wrong he was.

John sat back down. “Falling off ladders makes me hungry,” he said, trying to lighten the suddenly dark mood. “And these sandwiches look _delicious_.”

“Well then,” Rose said, drawing on all her strength reserves in order to sound cheerful. “We should eat.”

While they ate, Martha continued to putter around the room cleaning and tidying. The photos of Rose may not have convinced her one-hundred percent that the new librarian was Rose Tyler, but her response to John’s journal left no room for doubt.

No matter how much Martha wished it weren’t true.

Soon enough, a bell rang, signaling that it was time for the next class to begin. John rose from his chair, a look of regret crossing his features. “That’s my cue to go,” he said.

Rose got up as well. “I should return to the library. There’s a lot to catch up on.”

John picked up the journal from the table and held it out to Rose. “You’re welcome to read through this if you’d like.”

For a fleeting moment, Rose looked at the book almost as if there was a large bug on it, but then she schooled her features into an interested look. “That would be lovely.”

They left the room and went their separate ways, Rose fairly certain she could find her way back to the library. She had barely turned down a hallway before she heard Martha calling her name. She turned around to see the maid hurrying after her with a worried expression. She held up the journal.

“It’s all right; he said I could take it.”

Martha caught up with Rose and shook her head. “I don’t care about the journal.” She glanced around. The corridor Rose had turned into wasn’t one that was heavily used by the boys, and despite it being class change time, it was nearly empty. She reached into her apron pocket and pulled out the photo of Rose and the Doctor, holding it out to Rose. “I care that you’re Rose Tyler.”


	8. Chapter 7

Rose gaped at Martha. “What did you say?”

“I said you’re Rose Tyler.”

“How do you know who I am?” Her already jumbled thoughts grew even more confused. All her earlier theories about kidnapping combined with time travel or John Smith being a parallel human echo of the Doctor raced circles around her one impossible hope – that somehow, some way, she truly had ended up back in her true universe, with the Doctor.

Instead of saying something in response, Martha merely held the picture out further, urging Rose to take it. She numbly reached out and held it by the corner. She recognized it immediately as one of the photos she’d kept on her dresser in the TARDIS. Her mum had taken it when they’d stopped at the Powell Estates to tell Jackie and Mickey about being made a knight and a dame by Queen Victoria minutes before being banished by the same. Jackie had seemed torn between being wildly proud of her daughter the dame and accusing her of getting airs from traveling with the Doctor. She’d settled on scolding the Doctor for nearly getting Rose killed by a werewolf.

Rose slowly flipped the picture over and bit back a sob at the sight of the Doctor’s simple caption. “Oh, God,” she said, tears beginning to stream down her face.

Martha watched Rose go pale and suddenly worried that the other woman might fall over any second. “Do you need to sit down?” she asked, reaching out to touch Rose’s shoulder. Rose’s breath hitched on a sob.

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” She wiped her face and took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Is this really happening?” she whispered.

“Looks like it,” Martha said.

Rose tore her gaze from the photo in her hand and looked at Martha. She set aside her feelings of relief at not being the only time-traveler in the area and focused on the matter at hand – the Doctor. “So you’re traveling with him, then?”

“Yeah, for a few months now.”

“And… why is he…” she gestured awkwardly. “John Smith?”

“What he said about dreaming of hiding,” Martha said urgently. “It’s true. He is hiding. I can’t explain it now, I have to go do my chores. But for now I just need you to be on the lookout for anything weird.”

“Besides me magically switching universes?”

“Don’t think I wasn’t suspicious of you.” Martha sighed. “But the photos went a long way to convincing me you were who I thought you were, and then when the Doctor showed you the journal…”

“That’s not the Doctor,” Rose said, her voice coming out sharp.

Martha stared at Rose in surprise. “Yes it is. I watched him change himself to a human.”

“No, I mean…” Rose held up the photo of her and the Doctor. “The Doctor didn’t show me this journal.” She dropped her hand back to her side. “John Smith showed me this journal. John Smith wrote this journal, because somewhere inside him, the Doctor’s still there.” She sighed. “But he’s not the Doctor.”

“No,” Martha said after a beat of silence. “He’s not. But we’ve been here for two months now, and I can promise you, it’s easier if you think of him as the Doctor anyway.” She reached into her apron pocket and pulled out the other picture she’d taken from Rose’s room. “Here,” she said, holding it out to Rose. “I took this one as well. Sorry, by the way. I went into your room to find these. I didn’t touch anything else.”

Rose took the picture and smiled at the sight of her mum and Mickey. “S’alright,” she murmured.

“We’ll talk later,” Martha said gently.

Rose nodded. “Yes. Later.” Numbly, Rose turned to continue her walk to the library.

Once she reached the library, she hesitated at the door. She absolutely did not feel like risking the company of others.

Instead of going into the library, she headed to her own quarters. She crossed to her bed and sat down, legs curled beneath her as she braced herself on one arm. She laid the journal down, then each of the pictures Martha had given her. She brushed her fingers lightly over the Doctor’s smiling face. “Oh, Doctor,” she whispered. “I don’t know how I got here, or why. But I’m so glad I did.” Her breath caught and tears welled in her eyes once more. “I’m home, Doctor. I hope you come home soon, too.”

And she laid her head down on the bed to have a good cry.

\-----

That evening, Martha stopped by the library, but Rose wasn’t there. Rather than bother her in her room by knocking, Martha wrote her a note and slipped it under the door. She and Jenny were going to the pub in town. If Rose wanted, she could meet Martha there. Once Jenny left, they could discuss the situation.

\-----

Elsewhere in the school, a group of boys were settled into their dormitory. One of the older boys, Hutchinson, called out to one of the younger boys.

“Ah, Latimer. Here you are. Latin translation.” He tossed a book down in Latimer’s direction. The boy obediently crossed to pick it up. “Blasted Catullus,” Hutchinson continued. “I want it done by morning,” he added to Latimer, who nodded.

“Yes, sir.” He sat down on his bed and opened the book.

“And no mistakes,” Hutchinson continued. “I want it done in my best handwriting.” He laughed and reached for a letter he’d received that day from home. He opened it and began reading. “Listen Baines, Father says he’s been promoted.”

One of the other boys looked up from his book in interest.

“That means more money. Might end up in a better school.”

Latimer looked up from his book as well. “Ah, he should enjoy it, sir. My uncle had a six-month posting in Johannesburg. Says it was the most beautiful countryside on God’s earth.”

“What are you talking about?” Hutchinson asked sharply.

Latimer rose from the bed. “Africa. Your father.”

“You’ve been reading my post?” Hutchinson’s voice was angry.

“What?”

“Who said Africa? I’ve only just read the word myself!” He got up and crossed the room to where Latimer stood. He grabbed the smaller boy by the collar and pushed him against the wall. “How did you know that?”

“I’m good at guessing, that’s all.”

“Idiot,” Hutchinson said after a moment, releasing Latimer with a jerk.

Latimer straightened his jacket and sat back down on the bed. “Sometimes I just say things… and they turn out to be correct. Just little things. Tiny things. I can’t help it,” he insisted. “It’s just some sort of luck.”

Baines and Hutchinson stared at him contemptuously for a moment, before Baines stood up. “Right, well… never mind that little toad. Who’s for beer?”

“You’ve got beer?” Hutchinson asked with interest.

“No, but Baxter’s hidden a secret supply in Blackdown Woods.”

“Well,” Hutchinson said. “What are you waiting for?” He watched as Baines unlatched the window and prepared to climb out. “Make sure the bursar’s down the pub before you go past his window.”

Baines nodded. “A bottle for everyone, is it?”

“And none for the filth,” Hutchinson replied with a glance at Latimer and the other younger boys. “And hurry back, Baines, I’m parched!”

Baines sketched a sarcastic salute and disappeared out the window.

\-----

Martha shivered slightly as she exited the pub, two pints in her hands. She crossed to where Jenny sat on a bench, handed her one of the pints, and then sat down beside her. “Ooh, it’s freezing out here!” she exclaimed. “Why can’t we have a drink inside the pub?” She thought longingly of her own time and then wondered if perhaps she should have gotten hot ciders for her and Jenny instead of beers.

“Now don’t be ridiculous,” Jenny replied laughingly. “You do get these notions! It’s all very well, those suffragettes; but that’s London, that’s miles away!”

“But don’t you want to scream sometimes? Having to bow and scrape and behave; don’t you just want to tell them?”

Jenny smiled pensively. “I dunno… things must be different in your country.”

“Yeah, well,” Martha replied petulantly, “they are. Thank God I’m not staying.”

“You keep saying that.” Jenny’s tone made it obvious that she didn’t necessarily believe that it was true.

“Just you wait. One more month, and I’m as free as the wind.” She was about to tell Jenny that she wished the other girl could come with her, but it occurred to her that chances were there would already be an additional passenger in the TARDIS. It was highly unlikely that the Doctor would even think of leaving _Rose Tyler_ behind. And if Rose Tyler, the famous, perfect Rose Tyler, was back in the TARDIS… where would that leave Martha Jones, who was always second best?

“Where are you going?” Jenny asked, shaking Martha out of her thoughts.

“Anywhere,” Martha responded wistfully. She looked up at the sky. “Just look up there. Imagine you could go all the way out to the stars.”

Jenny laughed again. “You don’t say half mad things!”

“That’s where I’m going,” Martha said firmly. If nothing else, there was just as little possibility of the Doctor leaving Martha behind in 1913 as there was of him leaving Rose. “Into the sky, all the way out.” Jenny laughed again, but Martha’s attention was now focused on the night sky. Suddenly, so fast that Martha wasn’t completely sure she’d really seen it, she caught a flash of green light. “Did you see that?” she asked sharply.

“See what?”

“That light, didn’t you see it?” She pointed up at the sky with her free hand. “Right there, just for a second?”

“Martha, there’s nothing there.”

Martha stared back up at the sky, unconvinced.

\-----

In a clearing in the woods a short walk away from the pub, Rose Tyler walked in the dark, muttering to herself and rubbing her arms.

“I suppose I couldn’t have appeared back in this universe in the summer. Oh, no, it has to be _November_.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw a flash of green light in the sky. She stopped walking and stared up, searching the stars for a hint of the light.

“Seeing things now, am I?” she grumbled. “All that talk from Martha’s got me spooked.” She was about to start walking again, knowing from the directions she’d gotten off one of the maids that she was almost to the pub Martha had named in her note, when the green light reappeared, stronger and closer.

A hell of a lot closer, in fact. It hovered a few meters ahead of her, where clearing gave way to a small wood, just above the tree line. She took a deep breath and a single step forward, but froze again when a beam of light shot down from the main source and began scanning the ground. It held for a moment as it shone down on Rose, and she hardly dared to breathe. _Not good, not good, not good_ , she thought. She was going to be a very angry person if she were almost reunited with the Doctor and then killed by aliens. But the beam of light blinked out and the green ball zipped over Rose’s head. She whirled around to follow its progress. Seconds later, the beam of light reappeared and seemed to scan back and forth across the ground. About the time it hit another line of trees, both the beam and the source light winked out.

Rose took one moment to breathe deeply and slow her racing heart. Then she turned back around and ran towards the pub. Now she _really_ needed to talk to Martha.


	9. Chapter 8

Back at the pub, Martha and Jenny had almost finished their pints. Martha squinted down the road and realized that someone was coming – quickly, like they were running. The figure looked familiar. Martha stood as the figure came closer. It was Rose, and she looked upset.

“Miss Rose,” she said as Rose reached the pub, remembering for once the need to act her place. “Are you all right?”

Rose nodded breathlessly. “I’m fine, but did you see it? In the clearing in the woods, did you see the light?”

Martha tensed. “Yes,” she replied urgently. She was about to continue when John Smith stepped out of the pub and caught sight of the ladies, his gaze drawn inexorably to Rose.

“Anything wrong, ladies?” Rose glanced at him briefly and then returned to a search of the skies. John continued speaking. “Far too cold to be standing around in the dark, don’t you-”

“There!” Rose interrupted, pointing into the sky and nudging Martha’s shoulder. “In the sky, over there!”

Martha saw it and exchanged a serious look with Rose.

“That’s beautiful,” Jenny said reverently.

“It’s… orgom. Commonly known as a meteorite,” John said, sounding very professorial. “It’s just rocks falling to the ground, that’s all.” He moved to stand next to Rose and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

“It came down in the woods,” she said, looking at Martha pointedly while unconsciously inching closer to John.

“No, no,” John said soothingly. “They always look close, when actually they’re miles off. Nothing left but a cinder.” He stepped around so that he was standing in front of Rose, and her attention shifted from the sky to him. “I should escort you back to the school,” he said.

Rose’s eyes flicked to Martha, who mouthed silently, “Later. Back at the school.” Rose nodded imperceptibly at Martha, then more obviously to John.

“Ladies?” John said, shifting his attention to Martha and Jenny.

Martha shook her head. She needed to investigate the light so that she could report back to Rose that night. “No, we’re fine. Thanks.”

“Then I shall bid you goodnight,” John said solicitously. He put on his hat and then offered Rose his elbow. She took it, and with a last pointed look at Martha, she let John lead her away from the pub. The look Martha gave her in return was equally stern and pointed. _Look after him_ , it seemed to say.

Martha watched them walk away and then turned to Jenny as soon as Rose and John were out of earshot. “Jenny, where was that? On the horizon, where the light came down?”

“That’s by…” Jenny paused, thinking. “Cooper’s Field,” she decided. “In Blackdown Woods.”

Martha set off in that direction, nearly running.

“You can’t just run off,” Jenny called, standing up and setting her mug down on the bench. “It’s dark, you’ll break a leg!” But Martha only waved her hand dismissively. With an annoyed sigh, Jenny set off after Martha at a run.

\-----

In the woods, the boy Baines had just reached Baxter’s hiding place and hefted one of the crates when the green light Martha and Rose had sighted blinked into existence a few meters away from him. He stared at it curiously until it winked out a few seconds later.

“I say,” Baines said, all stiff pomp and schoolboy haughtiness. “Hello? Is that some sort of aeroplane? You chaps all right?” He set the crate back down and set off towards the place where the light had faded, over a clearing known as Cooper’s Field. Suddenly, he ran straight into an invisible wall. “What?” he exclaimed, stumbling slightly.

He reached out and touched the invisible wall again, watching as green light rippled around what appeared to be a very large and very oddly shaped aircraft of some kind. Blinking in amazement, he reached out again and pushed, with both hands this time. The green ripples lasted longer, giving him an even better idea of the shape. “That’s… that’s impossible,” he muttered.

He pressed his hands against the force again and held them there, the green light holding as well. He moved his hands along the force, trying to guess what it was by feel. Suddenly, he felt as if he’d pressed a button of some kind, and heard a whooshing sound. “Some kind of door?” he wondered aloud, for as his hands moved along, they seemed to encounter empty space on the other side of the green light, behind which they disappeared if he pushed far enough through.

“Hello?” he said again, shouting into where he thought the opening might be. “Is anyone there?”

There was no answer. Taking a deep breath, Baines pushed further through the green light until he had disappeared completely. The green light rippled once, and was gone. The field appeared empty once more.

A moment later, Martha stumbled into the field, followed closely by Jenny.

“There, see,” Jenny said. “Nothing there. I told you so. You never listen,” she added as an afterthought.

“And this is Cooper’s Field?” Martha knew she must sound unduly urgent, but if the Family had found them, she figured blending in was about to become the least of her problems.

“As far as the eye can see,” Jenny said, gesturing around the clearing. “And no falling star in sight.” She rubbed her arms briskly, tugged on Martha’s elbow. “Now come on, I’m frozen to the bone. Let’s go. And as your Mr. Smith says, ‘Nothing to see.’”

Jenny let go of Martha’s arm and turned to go. Martha gave the clearing one last intense look before turning to follow the other woman.

Inside the ship, Baines sat in a dark corridor littered with hanging wires whose ends trailed along the floor. “But I don’t understand,” he said. “Who are you?”

“We are the Family,” replied the disembodied voice that had welcomed him into the craft.

“Far more important,” said another voice, “who are you, little thing?”

“My name is Baines. Jeremy Baines.” His schoolboy bravado was rapidly draining, and his voice sounded small no matter how much he tried for imperious. “Please can I go?”

“I’m so sorry, Baines, Jeremy Baines,” said the second voice. “But I don’t think you can ever leave.”

“But… who are you? Why can’t I see you?” His mind was racing. This was beginning to seem like a situation with very little chance of ending well.

“Why would you want to see us?” the voices asked simultaneously.

“I… I want to know what you look like.” _Know your enemy_ , he thought. _Right_?

“Oh, that’s easily answered.” The second voice again. “Because very soon, we will look _so_ familiar.”

Something – a large, ominous shape – began to emerge from the darkness. Baines shrank against the wall as it came into view. And all he could do was scream.

\-----

Back at the school, Latimer had finished Hutchinson’s Latin translations and moved on to polishing the older boy’s shoes. Hutchinson and the others his age were sitting at a table playing cards. The clock chimed – it was getting late. Hutchinson sighed in annoyance.

“Where is he? Promises us beer then vanishes into the night.”

Suddenly, as if responding to a summons, Baines was knocking at the window.

“There he is,” Hutchinson observed unnecessarily. He gestured to one of the younger boys near the window. “Well, let him in.”

Latimer looked up as Baines climbed in, a feeling of dread settling in the pit of his stomach.

“Baines, you dolt,” Hutchinson was saying from his seat at the table. “I thought you’d been caught by the rozzers.” Baines stared around the room, eyes wide, and made no reply. “Well then? Where is it, man? Where’s the blessed beer?”

“There was no beer,” he said flatly. “It was gone.”

“Damn it all, I’ve been waiting. Pretty poor show, Baines, I have to say.”

Baines sniffed loudly, exaggeratedly.

“What’s the matter with you?” Hutchinson asked coldly. “Caught sniffles out there?”

“Yes, I must have,” Baines replied, his voice oddly empty. “It was cold, very cold.”

Latimer stared at Baines, every instinct telling him something was very wrong. Baines stared back, almost as if he knew.

“Well, don’t spread it about,” Hutchinson said. “I don’t want your germs. Come on,” he added. “Might as well get some sleep. Come on, chaps,” he said, addressing the other boys. “Maybe tomorrow. Jackson’s got some beer in the pavilion.”

Latimer tore his gaze from Baines and went back to his polishing.


	10. Chapter 9

Rose was pacing her rooms nervously, waiting for Martha to show up. She’d let John walk her back to the school and then manufactured an excuse to spend a bit more time with him in the library, just to keep an eye on him as long as possible. She couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment it happened, but at some point during the evening, she had stopped searching John’s face for signs of the Doctor’s expressions. She’d stopped listening carefully for any sign of the Doctor’s tone or turn of phrase. She’d stopped being disappointed that she couldn’t find any hint of either.

Instead, she’d begun to enjoy _John’s_ company, much as she had before she’d found out that he didn’t just look like the Doctor, he _was_ the Doctor. Sort of was the Doctor, anyway. But he was so different when all was said and done. John Smith was definitely _not_ the Doctor.

Oh, there were the tiniest hints that indicated that he was very much like a human version of the Doctor might have been in Pete’s World. His wistfulness when he spoke of his desire to travel, for example, or his fascination with why things happened the way they did in history – how the deeds of men shaped the world around them.

Still, though John Smith might have had the Doctor’s face and some of his most general predispositions, the twinkle in his eyes was not the Doctor’s twinkle.

It concerned Rose slightly that she found John’s twinkly eyes as appealing as the Doctor’s.

The way her heart rate had increased when John had gallantly kissed her hand before taking his leave that evening, well… that concerned her even more.

She was still trying to decide if she needed to feel guilty, and if so how much, for being both in love with the Doctor and attracted to John Smith, when she finally heard a knock on her door.

She hurried to the door and opened it to find Martha standing there. She ushered her inside and closed the door behind, locking it as a precaution.

“Did you find anything out?” Rose asked without preamble, gesturing for Martha to sit down on a sofa in her sitting room.

“No.” Martha remained standing. “I went to the clearing where it looked like the light came down, but there was nothing there.”

“You checked it thoroughly?”

“Well, Jenny dragged me away before I could-”

“We’ll have to go back sometime tomorrow, I suppose,” Rose murmured. “You can sit down, you know,” she added, though she was still pacing.

“I was thinking you might like to see the TARDIS.”

Rose whirled around to face Martha, and the look on her face nearly made Martha’s eyes well with tears.

“It’s close?” Her hand flew to her chest where the TARDIS key lay under her dress. It wasn’t noticeably warm, and she certainly hadn’t seen it glowing.

Martha nodded. “It’s on emergency power so that the Family can’t track it.”

“The Family?”

“That’s the aliens that we’re hiding from.”

“The ones who may or may not have appeared in the green ball of light?”

“The very same.” Martha put her hands in the pockets of her coat. “Anyway, I thought you might like to go to the TARDIS. And with things being as they are, I thought that tomorrow one of us ought to be as close as possible to the Doc-” She cut herself off, remembering Rose’s earlier reaction. “John Smith,” she said instead. “So I thought we ought to go to the TARDIS now, while John is safe in bed and no one’s about.”

Rose nodded, and Martha could see a shift in how she held herself and how she moved. The idea of going to the TARDIS seemed to have provided the anchor with which Rose could steady her whirling thoughts. For a moment, she could almost convince herself she was just dealing with another incident for Torchwood Three, just without the aid of her team.

“Yes, we’ll need to keep an eye on him. We can use class times to check the grounds for things that aren’t right… oh, if only my team were here…”

“Right,” Martha said. “Did you want to go to the TARDIS, then?”

Rose shook herself out of planning mode. “Yes, yes, of course. Just let me get my coat.”

It took a bit more time on foot than when Martha rode her bicycle, but soon enough they were approaching the barn that hid the TARDIS.

“It’s in there, isn’t it?” Rose asked when the barn came into view.

“Yes, it is.”

Unable to contain herself, Rose broke into a run. She was going _home_.

“Wait!” Martha shouted after her. “I’ve got to let you in!”

“I’ve got a key!” Rose shouted over her shoulder, putting on more speed.

Martha’s quick steps faltered at the revelation that Rose still had her key. Of course, she thought as she jogged after Rose, it’s not like the Doctor would have been able to get it back across the void. And, she supposed, if she were torn from the Doctor against her will and happened to have her TARDIS key with her at the time, she wouldn’t toss it away. She slowed her steps further, thinking that perhaps Rose would appreciate a moment on her own.

Rose practically flew into the barn and raced to the corner where the TARDIS sat. Now that she was so close, her key began to feel warm against her skin. She fumbled the chain over her head and saw that the key had also taken on a faint glow. Nothing like she’d seen or felt when the key had served as an indicator that the TARDIS was close by, but it was something.

Her fingers practically shaking, she managed to get the key into the lock and turn it. She surged through the door, froze in her tracks, and nearly burst into tears at the sight of the dimly lit console room. She walked with something close to reverence up the ramp and then circled the console itself, trailing her fingers lightly over it. “Hello, girl,” she said softly, smiling warmly. The TARDIS seemed to pulse in response, and Rose felt a warmth in her heart that she knew was a greeting.

“I missed you, too,” she replied. “Been looking after ‘im for me, right? Of course you have.” She continued making slow circles around the console, always keeping in contact with it. “Brought ‘im here, didn’t you, when I’d be here? Or was it me you brought here?” She smiled wryly. “Something here isn’t coincidence. Maybe you didn’t bring me to 1913, but I’d be willing to bet that you brought me to the school.” She rubbed her key between her thumb and forefinger. “I owe you one,” she added softly.

The door opened then, and Martha stepped through, an apologetic look on her face. Rose beamed at her.

“She looks just the same,” Rose said happily.

“I don’t think you’ve been gone _that_ long,” Martha said bemusedly, noting that Rose had the same habit of referring to the TARDIS as if it were a person as the Doctor did. “I’ve been traveling with him for a few months, and I don’t think he was alone for more than year before then. Can’t have changed too much in that time.”

“You’d be surprised,” Rose replied. “Once, a few months after I came on board, she changed the entire kitchen overnight.”

Martha shook her head. “You’re pulling my leg.”

“No, I’m not. Hasn’t she redecorated whilst you’ve been on board?”

“You’re serious.”

“Of course! Hasn’t the Doctor told you that she’s alive?”

“He says all sorts of things,” Martha said defensively. “I never know what to believe.” She tilted her head slightly in consideration. “’Course, that does explain his habit of stroking-”

“Bits of the TARDIS!” Rose finished with a laugh. “Been doing that for years, according to Sarah Jane.” She sat down on the captain’s bench and felt like she was sitting on top of the world. “So, tell me about this family, or whatever. And please explain how the Doctor is a human named John Smith.”

Martha moved to sit next to Rose on the bench. She took a deep breath, and then launched into as concise an explanation as she could manage. “Okay, so the Doctor and I were at the Eurovision Song Contest – don’t ask,” she interjected when Rose opened her mouth to question why. “And suddenly he grabs my arm and shouts at me to run. We run all the way back to the TARDIS, and I realize that we’re being chased by these… _things_ , I dunno. Anyway, they were the Family. They’re dying, and they need a Time Lord in order to survive. If they get a hold of the Doctor, they could live forever, roaming the universe killing and spreading chaos.”

“Not something the Doctor would want to happen, for _many_ reasons,” Rose observed dryly.

“Quite. So we ran back to the TARDIS, and the Doctor realized that the Family had a vortex manipulator they’d stolen off a Time Agent or something, he didn’t really have time to explain.”

“Hope it wasn’t Jack’s,” Rose murmured. She shook her head at Martha’s raised eyebrow. “Nothing. Just an ex-Time Agent I once knew.”

“Anyway, they had this vortex manipulator thing, so they could follow us wherever we went. He also realized that they’d never actually seen our faces. So he programmed the TARDIS to come here, and then strapped himself into this machine, the Chameleon Arch. It turned him human, gave him fake memories of his life as John Smith, and set him up with the ability to integrate into the society.”

Rose nodded. “How long does the Family have left to live?” she asked, immediately understanding why the Doctor had chosen this plan. He didn’t want to have to hurt them himself. He wanted to just let them die like they were supposed to.

“About a month,” Martha said. “We’ve already been here two months.” She gave a self-deprecating laugh. “It’s driving me crazy, actually. I don’t know how many more times I’ll be able to call a thirteen year old boy ‘sir’ before I crack up.”

Rose smiled. “It’s not all fun and games, is it? Traveling with the Doctor?”

“I guess not,” Martha acknowledged.

“Absolutely worth it, though.”

“Absolutely,” Martha replied, feeling oddly like Rose was testing her in some way. She felt an odd mix of desperately not wishing to not be found wanting and being annoyed that she was being measured at all.

“So, how does John Smith turn back into the Doctor?” Rose asked, steering the conversation back to the matter at hand.

“The Chameleon Arch put everything that makes the Doctor who he is in this fob watch with funny little symbols on it. Open the watch, and the Doctor comes back.”

“Gallifreyan writing?” Rose asked. At Martha’s blank look, she gestured to the monitor. “The same circles and stuff that show up on the monitor?”

“Oh. Yeah, those.”

Rose nodded. “Easy enough to keep track of… are you keeping it, or is there a perception filter on it to keep John from opening it before it’s time?”

“Perception filter,” Martha said. She had to admit, Rose was obviously the type of person who caught on quickly, picked things up fast. _Perfect Rose_ , she thought bitterly, remembering the scrawled words at the bottom of the page in the journal with Rose’s picture.

“And we’ve just got to keep him here for another month, and he can be the Doctor again?”

Martha nodded. “But that may get difficult, if those green lights have anything to do with the Family.”

“In my experience, things that happen around the Doctor don’t tend to be coincidental.”

Martha gave a short, mirthless laugh. “That’s the truth.” She sighed. “Listen, we should probably be getting back to the school. D’you want to see your room before we go?”

Rose shook her head. “Better not. I’ll just get way too tempted by the shower, and my underwear.”

Martha laughed genuinely then. “Yeah, I’m not sure which is really worse – having to call boys ‘sir,’ or having to wear underwear from 1913!”

Rose stood up and straightened her skirts. “Right then, off we go. We’ll get some sleep, and then tomorrow we’ll have to watch John, keep an eye out for the Family, and still at least make an effort to pretend to do our jobs.”

“I think I’ve the short end of the stick there.” Martha rose glumly from the bench.

“No arguments from me,” Rose replied sympathetically. “I did have to be a dinner lady once, though,” she added pensively. “‘Course, they did have brain-building chips, which I ate loads of. If the Doctor catches me off guard, he can still get me to do calculus in my head,” she mused, not even realizing how easily she had slipped back into using the present tense to talk about her life with the Doctor. “And then there was the time I had to be a waitress at a party full of rich snobs.”

“Maid,” Martha said simply. “For two months. In a boys’ school.”

Rose nodded. “You win.” She ran her hand one last time over the console as she and Martha headed for the door. “Bye, old girl. Keep well.”

“You sound like you think it’ll catch cold,” Martha observed as she locked the TARDIS door.

“Not that I recommend doing either of these things, but if you’d ever been on the TARDIS in a parallel universe or while orbiting a black hole, you’d understand me thinking she might take ill.”

Martha merely raised her eyebrows. She certainly knew and accepted that the TARDIS wasn’t like human airplanes or space shuttles. And yes, the Doctor did constantly stroke the TARDIS, and talk to it, and refer to it as “she” or “her.” But Martha’d never seen it do anything that really indicated it was a sentient being, and she’d withhold judgment until she did.

It had, after all, taken a trip back to Shakespeare’s time to truly convince her that it traveled in time, the Doctor’s parlor trick with the tie notwithstanding.

Martha and Rose walked back to the school in a silence that was somewhere in between awkward and comfortable. Each was lost in her own thoughts, only giving occasional notice to the other’s presence, despite the fact that they featured prominently in each other’s musings.

Just as the school came into their view, Rose yawned hugely. “God, I’m tired,” she said, speaking for the first time since she and Martha had left the TARDIS. “D’you know, it was lunchtime in the other universe when I left? Past lunchtime, actually, because I was way too obsessed with my job. Mum was nagging at me for getting thin, so I didn’t skip lunch completely for once. Went to a park, and ended up here at the crack of dawn.” She glanced over at Martha and saw that she was watching Rose with an odd look on her face. 

“Sorry.” Rose rubbed her forehead and gave a self-deprecating smile. “A full morning at work, followed by time travel without a capsule, followed by a really long day here… I’m more exhausted than I’ve been in a long time. Which is leading to babbling of Doctorish proportions that I’m trying really hard to put a stop to, I promise.”

Martha smiled. “It’s okay. I figured you’d had a long day, but I didn’t realize it had been _that_ long. If I had, I might have waited until tomorrow to drag you out to the TARDIS.”

“Oh, no,” Rose said immediately. “I’m happier about going to see her than I could explain.” She yawned again. “Now I’m just debating the pros and cons of risking using my cell phone’s alarm function so that I can wake up at what this lot will consider a reasonable time.”

“I don’t think anyone would care if you didn’t,” Martha ventured. “They’re quite used to not having a librarian, they might not even notice if you didn’t show up in there until noon.”

“Nah,” Rose said, waving away the idea. “I don’t need as much sleep as I used to anyway.”

The women reached the school and slipped inside. Martha obligingly made sure Rose got back to her proper hallway – “I couldn’t have done that without you,” she’d said gratefully – and then returned to the room she shared with Jenny, who was fast asleep.

Thanking God for small favors, Martha hurriedly changed into nightclothes and snuggled in under the blankets.

It was some time before she finally fell asleep.


	11. Chapter 10

Shortly after breakfast, Timothy Latimer walked briskly through the halls, studiously avoiding making eye contact with any of the older boys lest they sidetrack him. He made his way to John Smith’s quarters and knocked hesitatingly.

A moment later, the door opened and John looked down at Latimer inquisitively. “You told me to come and collect that book, Sir.”

John brightened immediately. “Ah, yes, good lad. ‘The Definitive Account of Mafeking’ by Aitchison-Price. Ran into a bit of a mishap getting a hold of it,” he muttered, mostly to himself. He looked around the room distractedly. “Where did I put it?”

He wandered over to his desk, Latimer trailing behind. “And I wanted a little word,” he said to the boy. “Your marks aren’t quite good enough.”

Latimer blinked in surprise. “I’m top ten in my class, sir.”

“Now, be honest, Timothy.” He moved some papers and peeked in drawers. “You should be the very top. You’re a clever boy, but you seem to be hiding it.” He wrinkled his nose in annoyance. “Where is that book?” Certainly he’d been distracted when he’d brought it back, but it had been brought back. He distinctly remembered Rose returning to the ladder to get it, lest the reason for his trouble in the library be forgotten in all the hubbub.

“And I know why,” he continued to Latimer, the lines of thought running parallel with an ease that would have surprised another man. “Keeping your head low avoids the mockery of your fellow students.” Though John was willing to bet that Latimer was already doing at least one other student’s homework for him, if not more. It was just the way things worked in a school like this. “But no man should hide himself, don’t you think?”

While he spoke, he wandered towards a small annex to his rooms – really just a large closet – where he kept a large number of books. Perhaps he’d put it there after Rose had left.

“Yes, sir,” Latimer said, following him. He stopped by the fireplace, his attention caught by a fob watch sitting on the mantel. He could have sworn it was whispering to him.

“You’re clever,” John was saying from the annex. “Be proud of it. Use it.”

Over his teacher’s voice, Latimer could now clearly hear a very similar voice whispering urgently from the watch. _Time Lord_ , it said. _Timothy, hide yourself. I’m trapped, kept inside the cogs._ He picked the watch up off the mantel, and the sound intensified. _Hide, Timothy! Hide yourself, hide me!_ He clicked the button to release the cover, and was shocked when beams of golden light emanated from inside. _HIDE ME!_ screamed the whispering voice. Latimer snapped the watch shut and stuffed it into his pocket.

Somewhere on the school grounds, Baines suddenly snapped his head up. He sniffed the air loudly, and a satisfied grin spread over his face.

Just as Latimer put the watch in his pocket, John emerged from the annex, book in hand. “Fascinating details about the siege, really quite remarkable.” He noticed the bewildered look on Latimer’s face and paused. “Are you all right, Latimer?”

“Yes, sir,” Latimer replied immediately, still hearing whispers emanating from his pocket. “Fine, sir.”

“Right then,” John said, not quite believing the boy but not willing to push the matter. “Good. And remember – use that brain of yours!”

Latimer nodded. John held out the book to him, and the boy reached out to take it. In the moment that both their hands still rested on the book, Latimer was battered by a sudden deluge of images. In them, his teacher was the same and yet different – not a teacher, but a doctor? No, not _a_ doctor, _the_ Doctor, capital “d.” He wore a pinstriped suit and held a tool of some kind – Latimer didn’t recognize it, but somehow he knew it was called a sonic screwdriver.

_Power of a Time Lord_ , he heard from his pocket.

Then John let go of his end of the book, and the visions faded, leaving Latimer pale and shaken. “You’re really not looking yourself,” John said, concerned now. “Anything bothering you? Anything I can help with, perhaps?”

Latimer gazed up at him in shock. “No, sir,” he managed. “Thank you, sir,” he added, gesturing with the book. He backed away for a couple steps, and then turned to walk quickly to the door. He closed it behind him and took a deep breath before heading towards his dormitory at a run.

It was deserted, as he knew it would be. He sat on the edge of his bed and pulled the watch out of his pocket again. It was still whispering, the voice of the Doctor blending with a thousand other indeterminate voices. He opened it again, and more of the golden light filtered out, curling in tendrils around his fingers. _You are not alone_ , the Doctor’s voice whispered. _Keep me hidden._

Latimer bit back a gasp as more visions flew past his eyes. The Doctor fought monsters, some of which he named to Latimer – Sycorax, the Empress of the Racnoss, Werewolf, Lazarus – and some which remained nameless but were somehow all the more menacing for it – men made of metal, giant pepper pots with genocidal tendencies. He snapped the watch shut again and stuffed it resolutely in his pocket. It wanted him to hide it, well then fine, he would hide it. But it would help, he thought, if it would shut up for a second.

\-----

Outside, Baines sniffed the air loudly once more. He made his way inside and took advantage of a break period to explore the corridors, sniffing periodically, trying to pick up a trace of the scent he’d caught twice now. Frustrated, he slipped into a deserted corner and shut his eyes, concentrating on contacting his family. A green glow surrounded his head once he’d connected to them telepathically.

_There is a trace_ , he told them, _but somehow scattered. The scent is confused. Nevertheless, we’d best arm ourselves._

He opened his eyes, the green glow disappearing. “Activate the soldiers,” he said out loud.

\-----

On the outskirts of the village, a middle-aged man, Mr. Clarke, strode down a lane that bordered his land. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught movement. He stopped walking and turned to look in his field, only to see a scarecrow _wave_ at him. Blinking madly, he stepped closer to the field. Sure enough, the scarecrow waved once more.

He shook his fist angrily at the figure and strode towards it, imagining that it was one of the boys from the school playing a joke. “That’s my property,” he shouted, “and you’re trespassing on my land!”

He reached the scarecrow and stood face to face with it. “Come on, now,” he said. “Who is it? Who’s in there?” He pulled at the straw and prodded the figure, trying to determine who the culprit might be. “One of those idiot boys from the school, eh?”

Suddenly, he realized that he had pulled out enough straw from the torso that he could stick his arm all the way through to the fabric at the back. “But how did you…?” He trailed off as the scarecrow tilted his head silently. He began to back away, only to find himself bumping into two more animated scarecrows, with more besides waiting behind those two.

\-----

Fifteen minutes later, a young girl was skipping down the same lane, clutching a red balloon and thinking about the tea she would get when she arrived at home. There was no sign of Mr. Clarke anywhere.

Then one of the scarecrows emerged from the bushes behind her. Startled by the loud sound it made, the girl screamed and tried to run. But even the awkward scarecrow was able to catch up on her small strides, and it threw her over its shoulder. She screamed as it carried her off, red balloon still clutched firmly in her fist.

\-----

Back at the school, Rose was sitting in the library trying to research UFO activity in the area – a difficult proposition in an academically-geared library from 1913 – when she was startled out of her research mode by the sound of rapid gunfire. Reaching automatically for a weapon that was no longer at her hip, she shot to her feet. Abruptly, she remembered the sandbag bunkers she had passed upon arriving the previous day.

She took a deep breath to calm her nerves, and then resolved that even if it _was_ just routine target practice, it still bore checking out.

Out on the grounds, John instructed a group of boys in the use of the guns. The boy Hutchinson was manning a gun, with Latimer at ready to feed the gun a steady stream of ammunition. Amongst the boys watching was Baines, who observed the proceedings with his eyes open unnaturally wide and oddly blank.

“Concentrate,” John murmured as Hutchinson set up a shot. He fired, Latimer doing his job as well. “Excellent work, Hutchinson.”

“Cease fire!” John turned to see who the shout came from – it was the headmaster, striding down the lawn.

“Good day to you, Headmaster,” he said good-naturedly.

“Your crew’s on fine form today, Mr. Smith.”

“Excuse me, Headmaster,” said Hutchinson, his voice haughty and annoyed. “But we could do a lot better.” He glared at Latimer. “Latimer is being deliberately shoddy.”

“I’m trying my best,” Latimer protested.

“You need to be better than the best,” the Headmaster told him. “Those are tribesman from the dark continent.”

“That’s exactly the problem, sir. They only have spears.” Even as he said it, Latimer was certain he would probably regret it, but he didn’t particularly care.

“Oh, dear me,” the Headmaster responded sarcastically. “Latimer takes it upon himself to make us realize how wrong we all are. I hope, Latimer, that one day you may have a just and proper war in which to prove yourself.” He frowned at the boy’s carefully blank expression. “Resume firing,” he said grumpily. Damn if these boys weren’t getting harder to intimidate every year.

Hutchinson did resume firing, but just as the gun suffered a stoppage, Latimer found himself distracted by a vivid image of himself and Hutchinson in a muddy trench, the sky falling around them in the form of bombs and smoke.

“There’s a stoppage, sir, immediate action.” Latimer heard Hutchinson’s words only dimly, but he shook himself out of the vision as the other boy continued. “Didn’t I tell you, sir? This stupid boy is useless! Permission to give Latimer a beating, sir?”

The headmaster looked mildly at John. “Your class, Mr. Smith.”

John resisted the urge to grit his teeth. He might have spent a career working in schools like this one, but that didn’t mean he was entirely comfortable with how they functioned. But he knew what was expected of him, by both the headmaster and the boys – even Latimer. “Permission granted,” he said tightly, never hesitating despite the distaste with which he faced this particular duty.

Behind the low stone wall, Rose observed the proceedings mutely. Now _this_ was something her Doctor would _never_ do. Teaching boys, perhaps. He wasn’t just a genius, after all; he was a genius who loved to share his knowledge with others. Teaching boys to fire guns, though? Never. She supposed it was different for John Smith – World War I was just around the corner, after all. Different times, she thought sadly. Different world.

She wondered idly what the Doctor would think of the proficiency with guns of all sorts that she’d picked up during her tenure at Torchwood. Jack – if she ever saw him again, of course – would appreciate it, she knew, and would probably challenge her to a shooting contest. But the Doctor had always been content with his sonic screwdriver and his wits. Still, she knew the Doctor would have been proud of what she’d done in Pete’s World, with or without the guns.

At the bunker, Hutchinson stood and roughly grabbed Latimer’s shoulder, dragging him away. Baines stayed behind, staring at John and sniffing.

“Anything the matter, Baines?” John asked mildly.

“I thought…” he muttered. There had been just a hint… but there was nothing now. “No, sir. Nothing, sir.” He turned on his heels and followed after the other boys with exaggerated military precision in his steps.

“As you were, Smith,” said the Headmaster.

John nodded, still slightly annoyed by the situation. “Ah, Pemberton, Smythe, Wick, take post.”

He caught sight of Rose then, and his annoyance vanished. One of his fellow teachers was also there at the bunker, and John gestured for him to take over. He walked quickly to meet Rose at the wall.

“Ah, Miss Rose,” he said when he reached her.

“Hello, Mr. Smith,” she replied, subdued thanks to her ruminations on the Doctor. “If you need your journal back, I have it in the library.”

“No, no, no… you’re welcome to it as long as you like.” He searched her face, seeing that she was upset about something. “Are you quite well?”

Rose nodded. “I’m fine. I was just thinking that it’s sad that it’s necessary to teach the boys about firing guns when they’re so young.”

John shrugged. “The discipline does them good.”

“I suppose.” Rose considered bringing up the situation in Europe, but she knew that her history wasn’t good enough for her to know what she could bring up in 1913 without appearing psychic. She was also fairly certain that it was still less likely for a woman to be expected to know anything about politics.

“Perhaps we could discuss it further on a walk to the village?” John suggested. “And other things as well, of course.”

Rose smiled. Perfect – an excuse to keep an eye on John _and_ survey the surrounding area for odd occurrences. “That sounds lovely, John. Er, Mr. Smith,” she corrected herself, flicking a look towards the people by the guns. The wind picked up slightly, and Rose hugged herself in defense. “If we’re going to do that, though, I should like to retrieve my coat.” She glanced down over his robes. “And I suppose you’d like to exchange your robes for your coat?”

John looked down at himself and chuckled. “That sounds like an excellent plan, Miss Rose.”

They walked companionably back into the school and through the hallways. Their paths diverged on a landing halfway up a stairwell. They stopped momentarily, agreeing to meet back at that spot as soon as coats had been retrieved. There was a notice board on the wall, and a boldly-lettered flyer caught Rose’s eye.

“Oh,” she exclaimed involuntarily. “A village dance, that’s lovely.” Charmed by the idea of a pre-World War I village dance, it took her a second to realize that her exclamation might have come across as a hint to John. She took a quick peek at his face and saw that it was a little on the pale side. He appeared to be entranced by the patterns in the cork of the notice board. “Sorry,” she muttered. “Can’t remember the last time I went to a dance.”

John seized the opportunity to change the subject. “Have you remembered anything other than your name?”

Rose shook her head. “Er, no. I haven’t. I just have a feeling that it’s been a while since I went to a dance.” They stood awkwardly for the space of a breath and then Rose gestured up the stairs. “Well, I’ll just go get my coat then…”

“Yes, yes! And so shall I. See you back here shortly,” he said quickly, stumbling backwards towards the stairs as he did so. He nearly lost his footing at the first step, but steadied himself on the banister and managed to keep his feet. Rose chuckled slightly and turned to go towards her own room.


	12. Chapter 11

Rose arrived in her hallway to find Martha bending over, about to slip a piece of paper under Rose’s door. “Save time,” Rose called out from a few yards away. “Just tell me what it says.”

Martha shot up straight with a start. She sighed when she saw Rose. “You startled me, Rose.”

“Sorry.” She reached the door and stuck her key in the lock. “Come on in,” she said, opening the door. “I’m just grabbing my coat; John and I are going for a walk in the village.”

“Oh.” Martha’s heart sank a little. “That sounds nice.”

Rose crossed to the wardrobe where she’d hung her coat. “I hope so. At the very least, it gives me a chance to keep an eye on him. I’ve been trying to do some research on alien activity in the area,” she continued conversationally. “But it’s not as easy here and now as it is in my time. And this library has a relatively limited selection anyway. I found a few interesting passages in some local history books, but nothing that fits the lights from last night.”

Martha nodded, impressed. She hadn’t expected Rose to get anything done that morning, given her exhaustion the previous night. Since she appeared to be perfectly alert now, it seemed that she hadn’t been kidding about not needing that much sleep. She held up the note she’d written for Rose. “I was just going to tell you, I’ve been all over the school this morning. Haven’t seen anything amiss. I’ll keep an eye out, though, while you’re out with the D- with John.”

Rose nodded, slipping into her coat. “Good. I’m sure we’ll be able to find a chance to compare notes sometime this evening.” She looked around the room, and her eyes lit on the photos Martha had given her, which were sitting on a table in her sitting room. She grabbed them and put them in her coat pocket. It wouldn’t do to leave them lying around unattended where they could be found by someone who shouldn’t see them.

They walked back out into the hallway and Rose busied herself with locking her door. Then she took a deep breath and looked Martha straight in the eye. “Look. I want to thank you for letting me in on this. I know it must be hard enough for you with the Doctor all human and stuff, and then for me to suddenly appear out of nowhere without him around to… I dunno, explain or make introductions or vouch for me…” She trailed off for a beat. “Well, just thank you, is all. You could have frozen me out, convinced me somehow that I was crazy for thinking he was the Doctor. I probably would have believed you, at least for a while. I did start out yesterday in a parallel world, after all.” She smiled. “But you didn’t, and that means a lot.”

Martha shrugged in embarrassment. “He wouldn’t exactly be happy with me if he woke up in a month and found out you’d been here all along and I’d frozen you out. Besides, I can use the help, what with the lights and the possibility that the Family is here.”

Rose smiled again. “Right. Still, thanks.” With that, she turned back in the direction of the stairwell where John would be waiting for her. “Be safe,” she called over her shoulder.

“You too,” Martha replied.

A short time later, Rose and John were walking side by side through the village, their shoulders occasionally brushing briefly to the rhythm of their gaits.

“If the boys at our school are too young,” John was saying with genuine curiosity, “at what age do you recommend that they be taught to fight?”

Rose considered carefully before answering. She had absolutely no idea what might be considered the ‘proper’ response from a woman of the time, so she resolved to tell the truth. “I suppose in a perfect world, one would never need to be taught to fight.” She looked over at John. “Of course, it is an unfortunate fact that we do not live in a perfect world. That being the case, I would at least hope that we could leave the fighting to the men and allow the boys to be boys.”

“And what of the discipline it provides?”

“Surely there are ways to provide discipline for children which do not require target practice before lunch,” Rose replied with a smile. “Or after, for that matter. Anyway, when the war comes, those boys will find that those guns aren’t made for fun and games.”

“Well,” John said, looking at Rose oddly, “Great Britain’s at peace, long may it reign.”

Rose mentally kicked herself. Five years of staying in the same time period sure had been detrimental to her ability to sustain the pretense of _not_ knowing the future. Then she remembered a section of John’s journal in which he’d sketched pictures of muddy trenches lined with barbed wire. “In your journal, in one of your stories, you wrote about next year. Nineteen fourteen.”

“That was just a dream,” John said, his voice somewhere in between a reflexive denial that it might be truth and a gentle reminder to Rose not to allow reality to blur with fiction.

Rose felt an odd need to try to convince John that the dreams _were_ true, that war _was_ coming. “All those sketches of mud and wire. You wrote about a shadow,” she added, remembering John’s poetic wording. “A shadow falling across the entire world.”

“Well then it’s a good thing it was a dream, isn’t it?” John was momentarily distracted by a scene unfolding a few yards away from them. Two men were hoisting a piano up towards a second-story window, but the rope was fraying. “I’ll admit,” he said, “mankind doesn’t need warfare and bloodshed to prove itself.” A short distance away from the men with the piano, a woman was pushing a pram, completely unaware of the danger that lay just ahead of her.

“Everyday life can provide honor and valor,” he continued, growing more and more distracted by the situation unfolding in front of him. “Let’s hope that from now on, this country can find its heroes in… in smaller places…”

He looked rapidly back and forth between the fraying rope and the still cheerfully unaware pram-pusher, then down at a child near him and Rose who, blissfully ignorant of the entire situation, was tossing a cricket ball up and down, a bored expression on his face. “In the most…” John murmured, noting that the rope holding the piano had now lost nearly two complete strands out of three and the piano had lurched dangerously. The men were now aware of the problem, but the woman pushing the pram had yet to notice.

“Ordinary…” The woman drew closer, the rope stretched further. John made a decision.

“Of deeds!” He snatched the cricket ball from the boy and threw it with blistering speed at a bundle of scaffolding poles. The poles fell, hitting on their way down a plank of wood with a brick on the end. The brick, in turn, flew off the plank. It flew over the piano just as the rope snapped and the instrument began its disastrous fall. The brick landed first, hitting a milk churn on a cart, sending it toppling – just in front of the pram. The woman let out a shriek and stopped, just as the piano came crashing to the ground in front of her, mere feet from hitting her child.

Rose stared at John in awe. Apparently even with the vast majority of the Doctor locked away in a fob watch, some things – like a mean right-handed fastball – will out.

“Lucky,” John breathed, putting emphasis on both syllables and drawing out the end of the word a little, more surprised at the turn of events than Rose was. Then again, John did not have the benefit of remembering saving his own life using nothing but his pitching arm and a Satsuma.

“Skill,” Rose disagreed.

John didn’t seem to hear her. Then he turned to face her fully, drew himself up to his full height, and took a deep breath. “Rose, might I invite you to the village dance this evening? As my guest?”

Rose couldn’t help herself – she burst out laughing. “You extraordinary man!” she exclaimed. _You ridiculous, wonderful, extraordinary man_ , she thought. _I might just miss you when you’re gone._

He laughed with her for a moment before sobering abruptly. “That is a yes, right?”

Rose let out another surprised bark of laughter before forcing herself to stop long enough to assure him that she would love to go to the village dance with him. “That way,” she said, nearly choking on a giggle, “when you are famous for saving the earth through miraculous feats with cricket balls, I’ll be able to say I knew you when.”

He offered her his elbow and grinned, feeling unaccountably brave. “Knew me when? I should like to think you’ll know me then.”

Rose chuckled, but she thought she saw the makings of something serious brewing behind John’s eyes. They had only known each other for one day, but unbeknownst to John, they were already connected by their pasts. All he knew was that he’d dreamed of her, and she’d appeared. But the fact that John was getting attached to her after just one day wasn’t really what worried her.

What worried her was that _she_ was getting attached to _John_.


	13. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a tiny reference to the Doctor Who novel "The Stone Rose."

After returning from the village, John insisted that Rose take tea with him before going off to perform whatever female rituals she found necessary as preparation for the dance. Since it gave her an excuse to continue her vigil over him – and because she did find herself wanting to spend time with him – Rose agreed and followed him to his quarters.

Rose poured this time, and surprised John by remembering that he took his tea with one lump of sugar and no milk. She nearly made a quip about having to notice details, with a job like hers, but remembered just in time that as far as John was concerned, she was a librarian, not an alien investigator for a secret government agency.

“Rose,” John said after finishing his tea. “I wonder if I could beg a favor of you.”

“Probably,” Rose said with a smile. “Depends on what it is, though, doesn’t it?”

John smiled in return. “It’s quite simple, really. I’ve already drawn you once, from my dreams.” Rose stiffened slightly at the mention of the dreams in which John was no longer John, but the Doctor. John didn’t notice, and pressed on. “If you wouldn’t mind, I should like to draw you now – now that you’re here, living and breathing in front of me.” He smiled again. “It would be a more true to life drawing, at any rate.”

“That would be fine, John. I left your journal in my rooms, why don’t I go get it?”

Rose retrieved the journal and returned to John’s room. He sat her by the window so that the afternoon sunlight lit her face with a dreamy glow. She gazed off into nowhere while he drew, her thoughts wandering to the only other time she’d served as an artist’s model. She’d spent hours stuck in stone – literally, turned into stone – for her trouble. And then so had the Doctor… of course, she mused, he had been _very_ glad to see her when she’d restored him to himself.

A small, knowing smile graced her face, and John sketched furiously across the room.

Some time later, he held the journal at arm’s length and studied his sketch of Rose with a critical eye.

“Is it finished?” Rose asked, the motion pulling her from her thoughts.

“Uhh…” John tilted his head one way, tilted the sketch the other. “Yes,” he finally decided. “Yes, it’s done.”

“Can I see it?” Rose stood up and began crossing the room towards the sofa on which John sat. He patted the cushion next to him, and she sat down, a touch closer than might have been strictly acceptable in 1913. John didn’t seem to mind. He handed her the journal, and she broke out in a pleasantly surprised grin.

“Blimey, I don’t look like that.” She pointed at the sketch of one of the Slitheen on the preceding page. “I look a lot closer to Margaret over there than this gorgeous girl.”

John laughed at Rose’s colorful language and her shock at how he’d drawn her. “Margaret, eh?” he said, looking with consideration at the monster Rose had pointed out.

“Err, it seemed to fit?”

John chuckled. “No, most definitely this page.” He pointed to the sketch he’d drawn of Rose.

“You’ve made me far too beautiful,” Rose said, remembering this time to speak less like a twenty-first century Londoner and more like a well-bred Edwardian lady.

“Well,” John said quietly, his eyes gone soft and dreamy, “it’s how I see you. How I’ve always seen you.”

“In your dreams,” Rose said, meeting his eyes. The moment seemed to build in intensity until Rose hardly dared to breathe, let alone shift her gaze to anywhere else in the room.

“Yes,” he breathed, reaching out to tuck a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. “I lost you in my dreams, but now you’re here in front of me.” He leaned closer, and Rose couldn’t help but do the same, eyes still locked with his.

“It’s better,” he whispered. “It’s better like this.”

“Is it?” Rose managed, the words barely audible.

“Much,” he muttered. And then he kissed her. It was soft and sweet and just a little hesitant – everything Rose might have imagined a kiss from John Smith would be. The kiss ended, and he pulled back an inch or two.

“I’ve never… um…” He seemed to search for words for a moment, gazing at the ceiling as if they might be written there. But Rose was too caught in the moment to say anything that might break it. Suddenly his eyes met hers again and she could see a decision made in them, but only briefly because then he was kissing her again. It was stronger this time, almost no hesitation and – dare she think it of a proper gentleman? – not even quite chaste.

His hands framed her face, fingertips just brushing into her hair. She raised her own hands to his cheeks, trying to resist the very un-ladylike urge to tangle her fingers into his unruly brown mop of hair. It was just _made_ for tugging on, she thought.

She didn’t get the chance to do any tugging, however, because at that moment, Martha Jones burst into the room.

Rose and John jerked apart, John’s face looking thunderous.

“Martha, what have I told you about entering unannounced?” he ground out in frustration. Rose noted that Martha looked something along the lines of devastated before she scurried out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

\-----

Martha leaned back against the door for a moment, feeling like she’d been kicked in the gut and had the wind knocked out of her. “That wasn’t on the list,” she whispered.

She pushed off the door and made her way quickly back to her room. She lay down on her bed and pulled the covers completely over her head, wanting to wallow in her misery for just a moment or two.

“You had to do it, didn’t you?” she muttered. “You had to go and fall in love as a human, with a human. And it wasn’t me.”

\-----

Rose felt guilty, and not just for the obvious pain she had inadvertently caused Martha. No, Rose felt guilty for two reasons. One, causing Martha what was surely undeserved pain. Unless, of course, Rose thought tangentially, she’d been putting the moves on the Doctor, in which case… Rose shook herself mentally. No, she wasn’t going to be that girl. She’d obviously hurt Martha, and she was going to be adult enough to feel bad about it.

Her second reason for feeling guilty had resumed his seat next to her and was looking at her apologetically. For it had definitely been _John Smith_ who Rose had been kissing. For the first time in over five years, she’d shared a first kiss with someone and not once the whole time had she thought of the Doctor and mentally measured one against the other and found her current partner wanting. In fact, she hadn’t thought of the Doctor at all. She picked at the bandage still covering the cut on her hand from the day before, studiously _not_ looking at John.

He noticed Rose’s distress and reached out to brush her cheek tenderly with his knuckles. “I’m sorry. I know I was being forward-”

“No, no,” Rose said hurriedly, finally looking up at him. “It’s not that. Forgive me, but I must be honest – I _liked_ that.” She blushed slightly, amused at herself that she was actually mildly embarrassed to be making the admission. Maybe there was something to all that Edwardian propriety after all. “I just feel bad for Martha.”

“Oh, I’m sure she’s seen people kissing before.”

Rose laughed involuntarily. “I don’t doubt that. But I do doubt she’s ever seen _you_ kissing anyone before.”

John glanced between Rose and the door in surprise. “You think Martha…? No, she’s just protective, that’s all. Territorial, even. Been with my family for ages.”

“Hmm,” Rose said noncommittally. “Well,” she said, brushing at her skirt. “I suppose I ought to go start the – what did you call them?”

“Mysterious Female Rituals,” he answered helpfully.

“Ah, yes. That’s it. I better go and start them so I’ll be presentable for the dance tonight.”

“Perfect Rose,” John murmured, brushing her cheek with his knuckles again. “You’re already more than presentable.”

“John, I…” He silenced her with a light brush of his lips over hers.

“Go on, then.” His voice was tender. “The dance starts around six, so I’ll swing round your rooms at five-thirty, to give us time for a leisurely walk to the village hall.”

Rose nodded mutely and then rose from the sofa. She began walking towards the door. Then she stopped and looked back over her shoulder, smiling softly. “It’s been quite an afternoon, John. Thank you.”

John grinned his endearingly silly grin, so much like the Doctor’s and yet so different. “You’re very welcome, Rose.”

\-----

Outside, Timothy Latimer sat on a bench contemplating the fob watch he’d taken from Mr. Smith’s mantel. It was still whispering, and if he opened it, the golden light still snaked out in sparkling tendrils. He idly flicked it open and closed a few times, trying to decide what to do.

He was fairly certain that the watch – or, more to the point, _the Doctor_ – wanted him to keep the watch with him, hidden away from everyone else. He had a strong feeling of it not being _time_ for anyone else to have access to the watch.

On the other hand, if he were to be caught with a teacher’s property… well, it didn’t really bear thinking about. Suffice to say that Latimer had no desire to suffer the consequences of such a turn of events. If Mr. Smith realized that the watch was missing, Latimer would have to be very careful.

He opened the watch again, listened to the whispers that grew more distinct when the watch was open. _The darkness is coming. Keep me away from the empty man… the last of the Time Lords, the last of a wise and ancient race…_ Latimer didn’t really know what to make of any of it, other than to be a little bit terrified of this Doctor who had the power to destroy entire planets – and used it. Even if they belonged to him and his people.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught movement nearby. He turned his head and saw Baines crossing the courtyard to meet Mr. Clarke from the village. Then, from the other side of the wall, a red balloon on a string bobbed by. At the end of the wall, a young girl Latimer thought he had seen in the village emerged. The three of them stood together, staring at Latimer, who shivered slightly in reaction. He snapped the watch shut and surreptitiously tucked it back into his pocket.

In complete sync, they tilted their heads to the side and sniffed exaggeratedly. Latimer remained frozen on the bench. After a moment, they seemed to lose interest. Their movements still disturbingly synchronized, they straightened their necks and turned to go, heading out towards the forest.

Latimer didn’t move a muscle until they were out of sight.

Down the road, Jenny was pedaling back from an outing in the village when two figures dressed as scarecrows abruptly burst through the hedges lining the fields. She gave a startled shriek and narrowly avoided a spill.

“Who’s that playing silly beggars?” she asked. “Nearly broke me neck!” The scarecrows gave no reply, merely tilting their heads in unison. Jenny gripped the handlebars of her bicycle tighter, beginning to feel uncomfortable. She kept a smile fixed on her face in defense against the feeling. “Who is that, then?” She tried to think of someone who might want to play a trick on her, and could only think of her brother, who lived in the village. “Is that you, Saul?”

Then she heard shuffling footsteps in the dirt behind her. She turned, and to her dawning horror, saw two more moving scarecrows advancing on her from behind. Then the scarecrows were all around her, coming from all sides. She screamed just as the first two scarecrows reached her.

The next thing she knew, she was in a dark hallway of some sort, with wires poking out all over. A young village girl, the boy Baines, and Mr. Clarke all stood over her menacingly. “I don’t understand,” she said, her voice pleading. “What have I done wrong?”

“Nothing at all,” said Mr. Clarke. “In fact,” he added, sounding far more dangerous than Jenny had ever heard him sound, “you’re just what we need, girl.”

“She works at the school,” Baines put in. “Whatever’s happening seems to be centered ‘round that establishment… the faintest of traces, but they all lead back there.”

“It’s Baines, isn’t it?” Jenny tried to sound meek and entreating. “This isn’t very funny, sir.” 

Baines snapped his head around to stare at her angrily. “Just shut up,” he barked. “Stop talking, cease and desist, there’s a good girl!” He paused, his lips curling in a very disconcerting smile. “Mother of Mine is dying to meet you.” He produced what looked to Jenny like a crystal ball. “And here she is.”

“Stop mocking me, sir!” Jenny tried for indignant. She was desperately worried that she only sounded pathetic.

“No! Mother of Mine just needs a shape. We go through shapes so very fast, you see. Yours is perfectly adequate, if a bit grim.” There was precious little time for Jenny to register the insult. “Mother of Mine – embrace her.” He stretched out the globe-like device towards Jenny. Green smoke billowed out of it, and Jenny screamed as it surrounded her.


	14. Chapter 13

In her room, Rose admired her handiwork in a mirror – it had been a job doing up all the buttons on the back of the former librarian’s nicest dress by herself. But she’d had no desire to pull one of the maids from their actual duties just to do up her buttons, and she was certain that however indulgent John had been thus far when she’d done something anachronistic, there was a limit to his tolerance for a woman’s forwardness. Asking him to do up her buttons for her might send him into an awkward ramble that might never be equaled. At least the bandage on her hand from the previous morning’s climb through the hedges didn’t cover her fingers and thus hadn’t affected her ability to fasten the buttons.

She’d piled her hair on top of her head and secured it with more pins than you could shake a stick at. Miss Andrews had taken most of her makeup with her, but Rose had done what she could with what was left. There was a little kohl for her eyes and a nearly-empty tube of lipstick for her lips. Rose pinched her cheeks to add color there and was glad that her time at Torchwood had left her less in the habit of caking on makeup before leaving her flat. Still, she thought longingly of elastic bands and hairspray. “Too bad there’s no time for a quick trip to the TARDIS,” she mumbled.

Thinking of the TARDIS made her think of the Doctor, and thinking of the Doctor made her feel guilty for being as excited as she was for her date with John Smith. Here she was, a month away from a reunion with the Doctor, the man she loved, and she was getting butterflies in her stomach over the man who wore the Doctor’s face.

It had just occurred to her to wonder whether or not the Doctor would have access to John Smith’s memories when a knock sounded at her door. Rose took one last look in the mirror, pinched her cheeks one final time, smoothed her skirt, and crossed to the door. She took a deep breath and opened it to find John, dressed in a brown suit and holding a single rose.

“Hello, John.”

“A rose for my Rose,” he said, holding out the flower. Rose took it, smiling indulgently. “I’m sorry,” John said after a beat. “That was unforgivably clichéd, wasn’t it?”

Rose laughed. “I find it hard to believe that you could do anything unforgivable, John. Let me put this in water and get my coat, and then we can go.” She turned and retrieved a glass of water from her bathroom. She found a pair of scissors in her desk and trimmed the stem of the rose before putting it in the glass, which she then set on a small table in her sitting room.

She looked up to find John gallantly holding her coat for her. “You look beautiful,” he said as she slid her arms into the sleeves.

Rose felt her cheeks turn pink. “Thank you.” It occurred to her then that while he could certainly dance in this body when he was the Doctor – she blocked the memories of dancing around the TARDIS console to any kind of music they could come up with when they threatened to overwhelm her – it had taken her previous Doctor some time to remember how to dance. John may have retained the Doctor’s prowess with a cricket ball, but that didn’t necessarily mean he’d retained the Doctor’s dancing abilities.

“I didn’t ask this afternoon, and I really feel this is something I should know before we get to the village hall,” she said as they walked towards her door.

“Yes?”

“Can you, in fact, _dance_?”

He opened his mouth to answer, paused, shut it again. “Um… I’m not certain.”

Rose resisted the urge to snort. “Makes two of us, then,” she muttered under her breath. “Somehow I’m not surprised,” she said audibly, affection creeping into her tone. “Is there anything you’re certain about?” She paused by the door, hand on the doorknob.

John stepped closer to Rose, definitely invading her personal space. He stared down into her eyes. “Yes,” he said, all seriousness. He leaned down and laid a brief, soft kiss on her lips. “Yes,” he said again.

Rose raised her eyebrows. John Smith, she thought, coming alive. “You’re all sorts of brave today,” she said with a smile, showing that she wasn’t objecting. Then she opened her door and slipped into the hallway, John following behind.

“I just need to stop back by my rooms to get my coat,” John said. “I realized when I was almost here that I’d forgotten it.”

“That’s fine, John,” Rose said with a laugh. But as they walked towards John’s quarters, her expression fell serious. She was trying to decide if it made it worse or better that the first man she felt strongly attracted to after the Doctor was a human version of the Doctor.

\-----

Martha had managed to drag herself out from under her blankets in fairly short order, all things considered. Rose or no Rose, Martha had a job to do. More than one, actually, when she counted her work as a maid and the need to keep watch for the Family.

So, she’d gotten out of bed and gone about her duties, always watching for anything out of the ordinary. It was now the late afternoon, and Martha was in her room again. One of the teachers had decided he didn’t want his tea, and Cook had told Martha she could have it. She was just sitting down at the small table she and Jenny shared when Jenny herself came in the door.

“There you are!” Martha exclaimed cheerfully. “Come and look what I’ve got. Mr. Poole didn’t want his afternoon tea, so Cook said I could have it. And there’s enough for two.” She gestured for Jenny to sit down, but Jenny didn’t move. “What are you standing there for?”

Jenny’s only reply was to sniff the air loudly.

“Are you all right?” Martha asked.

“Must have a cold coming on,” Jenny said. She sat down stiffly at the table.

“Problem is, I keep thinking about them, and I don’t know what to do.” Martha hadn’t told Jenny much about John and Rose, but she had spoken about them briefly the night before, after he’d met them at the pub and walked Rose home.

“Thinking about who?

“Mr. Smith and Miss Rose,” Martha responded. “It just worries me, is all. We’re leaving in a few weeks, me and Mr. Smith, and I don’t know how Rose will fit in.” She swirled her teacup slowly. “Or how I’ll fit in.”

“Why?”

“They have a history,” Martha began, trying to figure out a way to explain things without actually explaining them, but Jenny interrupted her.

“No. Why are you leaving?”

“Oh,” Martha said. “It’s like… his contract is coming to an end. That’s all. And we’re leaving.”

“Leaving for where?”

“Oh, all sorts of places,” Martha said. She glanced up from her teacup and smiled at Jenny. “I wish I could tell you, Jenny, but it’s complicated.”

“In what way?”

Martha shrugged. “It just is. I can’t explain it.”

“It sounds so interesting.” Jenny leaned forward, and her voice sounded completely unlike Jenny. “Tell me. Tell me now.”

Martha blinked and leaned back against her chair. “Would you like some tea?” she asked, trying to change the subject to buy herself time to think.

“Yes, thanks,” said Jenny, and Martha suddenly realized just how blank Jenny’s eyes looked. Something was very definitely wrong.

“I could put a nice bit of gravy in the pot. And some mutton. Or sardines and jam, how about that?” Martha wondered if she was starting to pick up the Doctor’s habit of rambling under stress.

“I like the sound of that.”

“Right.” Martha got up from her chair and edged around Jenny – or whatever was possessing her. “Hold on a tick.” She walked to the door at what she hoped was a normal pace and shut it behind her, carefully refraining from slamming it in haste. She even managed to walk reasonably to the stairs, before she finally broke into a run. 

Thinking fast, she decided that the most likely place to find Rose and the Doctor was in John Smith’s quarters. The quickest way there was across the courtyard, so out the building she flew. Her suspicions about Jenny were vividly confirmed when a laser gun blast of some kind hit the dirt behind and to the side of Martha. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Jenny leaning out of the window holding an alien blaster.

She redoubled her pace, legs burning. Two months of being a maid had apparently caused her to fall out of shape.

She reached the other side of the courtyard in one piece and proceeded to race into the building and through the corridors towards John Smith’s rooms. She bounded up a flight of stairs and ran down a hallway, turning a corner just in time to see John and Rose disappear around another corner at the far end of the hall.

Martha skidded to a stop outside John’s door. She had two options, as far as she could tell. One: chase down John and Rose and explain the situation. She knew Rose would be fully prepared to snap to action, but John was another matter. He would surely think Martha insane.

She knew there was a dance in the village that night; after the scene she’d witnessed earlier in the day she assumed that it was there that John and Rose were headed. John would be focused on getting there. He wouldn’t want to turn around and retrieve a watch just to indulge the whim of his insane maid. Even with Rose there to help convince him, Martha was fairly certain it wasn’t worth the time it would waste. Jenny was being possessed by a member of the Family; there was no telling how much access the alien inside her would have to her memories or how soon the Family would act on any information they managed to glean from her. John’s rooms might not be safe.

Option two, then, was for Martha to retrieve the watch and then follow John and Rose to the dance. She could get Rose’s attention there, pull her aside, and they could decide on a further course of action together.

Resolved to this course of action, Martha reached up and took out one of her hairpins. She made quick work of the lock on John’s door and rushed into the sitting room, going straight to the mantel.

“What?” she exclaimed, suddenly ten times more panicked.

The fob watch was not there. “Where is it? Where’s it gone?” She glanced wildly around the floor by the fireplace, hoping that the watch had simply fallen.

She rushed back to the hallway and looked in the direction John and Rose had left. Could she still catch them?

“Martha?”

Martha whirled around, swallowing a startled shriek. She gave a shuddering sigh of relief when she found herself facing only Timothy Latimer, not Jenny.

“Oh, Tim! You scared me!” She glanced back over her shoulder and decided there wasn’t time to catch Rose and John to enlist their help in searching the room for the watch. There was no way John had slipped it in his pocket – she’d watched him pick it up a million times, startled him or distracted him a million different ways whilst he was holding it, and he _always_ put it back down on the mantel. _Always_ , like it was part of the perception filter’s effect, _keeping_ him from putting it in his pocket.

She glanced down at Latimer, who was still looking at her with concern. “Are you all right?” he asked solicitously.

Martha managed to smile at him weakly. He was so different from the other boys, she thought. “I’m just… really busy,” she said. “I’ve got to get… back to what I was doing!” With that, she rushed back into John’s rooms and shut the door behind her with a firm click.

Latimer stared at the door, wondering what was wrong. He knew Martha was connected somehow to the Doctor inside the fob watch, because he’d seen her in some of the visions. He considered following her and handing over the watch, but just then the whispering from the watch grew louder and more insistent. It wanted him to go to the village hall, and it wanted him to do it _now_.

With one last look at Mr. Smith’s door, Latimer headed off in the same direction John and Rose had taken just a few minutes earlier.

Inside John’s quarters, Martha was tearing the room apart. As she riffled through every drawer and ran her hands over every shelf, she considered the possibility of Rose taking the watch for safekeeping. She could have done so, Martha admitted. She’d certainly had ample opportunity, having spent the afternoon with John. But Martha didn’t think Rose would have done something like that without letting Martha know she was planning it first. If there was one thing Martha could tell Rose understood, it was the importance of the two of them being on the same page as far as keeping John safe was concerned.

Twenty minutes later, Martha came to two conclusions. One, the watch was definitely not in John’s rooms. Two, it was highly unlikely that she would be safe there for much longer – she was certain that the Family would be on their way any time now.

“I guess I’m going to a dance,” she muttered. “Though God only knows what I’m gonna do when I get there.” She picked up John’s journal – he and Rose had left it on the table in the sitting room after John had finished his new drawing of Rose. She couldn’t be certain, but perhaps it would come in handy. She headed to the door and strode purposefully out, grateful that there was no sign of Jenny in the corridor.


	15. Chapter 14

While Martha raced to the TARDIS to grab a couple items she thought might help the current situation, Jenny and Baines entered John Smith’s rooms, sniffing loudly.

“Mr. Smith?” called Baines. “No-one’s home,” he said after a pause.

“The maid was definitely hiding something,” Jenny said. “A secret around this Mr. Smith.”

“We both scented him, though,” Baines insisted. “And there was nothing there. He was a plain and simple human, like everyone else we’ve scented around here.”

“Maybe he knows something.” Jenny glanced around the decidedly untidy room. “Where is he? And why does it look like a storm’s come through here?”

Baines shrugged and the two of them applied themselves to the task of sifting through the clutter and disarray.

\-----

At the village hall, John and Rose were approaching the doorway. Rose had her arm hooked around John’s elbow and was letting him lead her.

“You’ve taken my arm in public,” John said, a twinkle in his eye.

“I’m infatuated,” Rose said, and her tongue poked out between her teeth as she smiled. “You’re a dangerous man.”

John was momentarily distracted by an incredibly strong flash of memory evoked by Rose’s smile. He told himself it was from one of his dreams, but it seemed so vivid, so real, he could scarcely believe it hadn’t really happened. All he saw was an image of Rose dressed in the odd clothing of the future he dreamt of, grinning like she was now. He felt rather than saw that she was inside the magic blue box, with him – with the Doctor, rather. Smiling at him, proud of herself for something, or amused with him. Then the image faded, and John found himself standing at the foot of the stairs leading to the door to the hall.

“Everything all right, John?”

“Yes, Rose. Sorry. Everything’s fine.” He nodded up to the door. “Shall we, Miss Rose?”

“We shall, Mr. Smith.”

They walked companionably up the stairs, John stopping to give a few coins to a man by the door who was collecting money for veterans of the Crimean War.

A short distance away, Timothy Latimer poked his head around the corner of the hall building and watched. There were still whispers coming from the fob watch in his pocket. The Doctor wanted him to follow the new librarian – his voice sometimes referred to her with the formal “Rose Tyler, Defender of the Earth,” a title which Latimer found comforting in contrast to the one the Doctor often used to refer to himself – “the Oncoming Storm.” Then there was the mildly disconcerting “Bad Wolf.” Other times, the voice would soften, and he would refer to her as his Rose, like she was something precious and belonged to him, or at least _with_ him, forever.

Latimer watched as the man soliciting donations shuffled on his feet in the cold. When he turned his back on the door in order to count the money he’d collected, Latimer made his move. He scurried quickly around the building and up the stairs. He was inside before the man even thought to turn around and see if he’d really heard a noise behind him or not.

Once inside, Latimer walked slowly through the halls, listening carefully, for both the sounds of someone approaching who might keep him from his task and for the whispering in his mind that came from the watch. He reached the door to the room where the dance was being held and peeked around the doorframe. He quickly caught sight of Mr. Smith and Rose milling around the edges of the dance floor, talking animatedly about something. He considered going in and handing the watch to one of them, but he’d no sooner begun to form the thought than he was given to understand in no uncertain terms that the Doctor didn’t think it was time for that quite yet.

Latimer crept past the door and continued his exploration of the hall.

As Latimer made his way down the hallway, the announcer took his place in front of the band. “Ladies and gentlemen!” he called out. “Please take your partners for the waltz.”

Rose sent up a silent prayer of thanks for time that her first Doctor had insisted that if one was going to know how to dance at all, jitterbugging was all well and good, but the waltz was the foundation. She was confident that she would be able to at least acquit herself nicely, though she wasn’t sure she could make up for it if John Smith hadn’t retained the Doctor’s ability to dance.

John held out his arms, _here goes nothing_ written all over the sheepish look on his face. Rose smiled warmly and stepped into his embrace. His hand rested lightly on her hip, his hand was warm in hers – and that was different, too, on top of all the other differences between this John Smith and the Doctor. The Doctor was always, _always_ cool to the touch. But John was human, and his palm was as warm as Rose’s – and perhaps a little clammy.

Rose squeezed his hand reassuringly. The music started and Rose’s smiled widened as John led her around the floor in an almost flawlessly graceful waltz. “You _can_ dance,” she said, inordinately pleased.

“I’ve surprised myself,” he admitted. His pride in himself was momentarily shaken when he backed into another couple. “Sorry,” he muttered, cheeks reddening. Rose giggled happily and followed John’s lead with ease.

\-----

Back at the school, Jenny and Baines were still sorting through the mess in John’s rooms. In fact, though it hardly seemed possible given the frenzied nature of Martha’s search for the watch, they were actually managing to make the mess even worse.

Baines let out a growl of frustration. They could find nothing that indicated where Mr. Smith might be, nor where he had come from before appearing at the school two months earlier. Neither could they find anything that connected John Smith with the Doctor.

Mr. Clarke appeared in the doorway to Smith’s quarters, holding a poster up so that Baines and Jenny could see it. “I think this might help,” he said.

It was a poster for the dance in the village hall. Jenny smiled slowly and turned to look at Baines. “That makes it easy, Son of Mine.” There was a cold twinkle in her eyes. “Because Daughter of Mine is already there.”

Baines returned Jenny’s grin. “We’ve been invited to the dance,” he said ominously. The three of them shared satisfied smiles before turning as one to leave the school.

\-----

Outside the village hall, Martha approached the door where the Crimean War veteran stood collecting his donations. She was fully prepared to steam past him when he held out an arm. “Ooh, staff entrance I think, miss!”

Martha pushed his arm out of the way, barely allowing him to so much as put a hitch in her step. “Yeah, well. Think again, mate.”

He huffed disapprovingly as Martha shoved past, but made no further move to stop her. However cold it might be out in the night, he didn’t fancy a chase down the corridors. Besides, it wouldn’t do to leave the donation tin laying about.

As he shuffled about trying to keep warm, he didn’t notice the scarecrows hiding in the bushes nearby, keeping careful watch on the hall and those who came and went.

\-----

Inside the dance hall, Rose and John had taken a break from the dancing in favor of taking refreshment. Rose sat at a table waiting whilst John went to the other side of the room to get them some punch. She watched him walk, noting once again that he didn’t even really _walk_ like the Doctor walked. There were a number of people between John and the punch table, all waiting themselves for their turn with the punch bowl. As Rose watched him, he turned and caught her eye, giving her a sheepish smile and gesturing at the people, as if making an excuse for not returning more quickly. Rose smiled, and he returned his focus to the line in front of him.

Then Martha sat down across from Rose, and her smile faded immediately. “I suppose there isn’t really any chance that you’re here because you like to dance, is there?”

Martha shook her head solemnly. “I couldn’t waltz to save my life. We have a problem.” She glanced around the room, but the oddest thing she saw was a young girl holding a red balloon. She dearly hoped it would remain safe long enough to convince John to make a break for the TARDIS. “A very big problem.”

Rose shook her head. “Five years I’ve been gone, and nothing’s changed. That man can’t go anywhere without having very big problems… even when he isn’t himself in the first place!”

“I think they’ve found us, Rose. I think they’ve found us, I’m not sure how much time we have, and I can’t find the watch!”

Rose’s eyes widened. “You can’t find the watch? You’re sure John couldn’t have it?”

“He _never_ picks it up off the mantel without putting it back. _Never_. I think it’s part of the filter he put on it.”

The man in question returned to the table at that moment and gave a great sigh. “Now, Martha, I know you feel protective of me, but this is just a little ridiculous, don’t you think?” He set down the two cups of punch he’d retrieved from the other side of the room. “This is hardly the place for you; I really must ask you to leave.”

Martha shot to her feet, pulling the sonic screwdriver, which she’d retrieved from the TARDIS before coming to the dance, out of one of her coat pockets. She held it out to John. “Do you know what this is?” John stared at it, transfixed. “Name it,” Martha continued. “Go on, name it.”

John looked from the screwdriver to Rose. She stood slowly, putting her hand gently on John’s elbow. “John,” she said seriously. “What is it?”

He took the screwdriver from Martha and turned it over in his hands. “I don’t… It can’t…”

“You’re not John Smith,” said Martha urgently. “You’re called the Doctor. The man in your journal, he’s real.” She stared up at John’s face intently, waiting until he shifted his gaze from the screwdriver and met her eyes. “He’s you,” she finished.

\-----

Outside, the man with the collection tin saw three figures making their way towards the stairs. He rattled his tin encouragingly. “Evening all! Spare a penny, sir?”

Baines, flanked by Jenny and Mr. Clarke, drew a bulky alien blaster gun identical to the one Jenny had fired at Martha earlier. “I didn’t spare you,” he said coldly. He fired, and the man disintegrated into nothing, collection tin rattling loudly as it hit the ground. Baines and his companions ignored the scattered coins and made their way into the hall. Behind them trailed a number of the moving scarecrow soldiers, while still more gathered around the outside of the hall.

\-----

Martha was still staring into John’s eyes, willing him to remember being the Doctor, or at least accept that what he thought was impossible was actually the truth. Rose hadn’t removed her hand from his arm, but she hadn’t said anything else, letting Martha take the lead – for the time being, anyway.

Suddenly, Mr. Clarke burst into the room, blaster drawn. “There will be silence!” he shouted. “All of you!”

The band cut off abruptly, but many of the assembled villagers, particularly the women, let out involuntary screams of surprise and alarm. As they watched in shock, Baines and Jenny came in after Mr. Clarke. The scarecrows filed in next and positioned themselves behind the three Family members.

“I said silence!” roared Mr. Clarke.

“Mr. Clarke! What’s going on?” This came from the man who had been serving as the announcer. Mr. Clarke wasted no time on explanations. Instead, he simply aimed the blaster at the man and fired, instantly disintegrating him before the shocked eyes of the dance attendees.

Even Rose, hardened after her years with Torchwood, still had to stifle a gasp of surprise. Her hand tightened on John’s arm and she moved so that she was standing very close behind him. Behind the Family and the scarecrows, she noticed Timothy Latimer creep into the room, pressing himself against the wall as if he wished he were a part of it. One of his hands was jammed into his pocket, and Rose could just discern through the fabric that he appeared to be clutching and releasing something.

Before she could give too much thought to why the boy was here and what he might have in his pocket, Martha’s urgent voice cut through her musings.

“Mr. Smith, everything I told you just now… forget it. Don’t say anything.” She shifted her gaze to Rose, their gazes locking in mutual worry. They both knew just how unlikely it was that this was going to go well.

“We asked for silence,” Baines said, his voice even cold when he shouted. “Now then,” he continued at a lower volume. “We have a few questions for Mr. Smith.”

Rose’s heart sank. _They knew._

“No, better than that,” said a small voice across the room. Martha snapped her head around and saw that the little girl with the balloon who she’d noticed earlier had jumped up and was walking towards the Family confidently. Martha groaned inwardly. _Bad, meet worse_ , she thought. “The teacher. He’s the Doctor. I heard them talking.”

Baines stepped forward towards John, a look of consideration crossing his features. “You took human form.”

John’s face turned incredulous. “Of course I’m human! I was born human! As were you, Baines. And you, Jenny, and you, Mr. Clarke!” He glanced between the three of them in distress and confusion. “What is going on? This is madness!”

“And a human brain, too!” Baines exclaimed with amusement and derision. “Simple, thick, and dull.”

“He’s no good like this,” Jenny said in disgust. Rose shifted once again so that she was standing next to John. She slid her hand from his elbow down his arm and linked his fingers with his. This was clearly going to get sticky. John squeezed her hand in return, and for a brief moment Rose almost felt as if the Doctor were already back. But John’s hand was still warm in hers, and growing clammier by the moment as his nerves increased.

“We need a Time Lord,” Mr. Clarke said.

“Easily done,” Baines replied confidently. He took another step forward and raised his blaster, aiming it directly at John’s head. The assembled crowd gasped in unison. “Change back,” he said stiffly.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” John blustered.

“Change back!” Baines shook the blaster threateningly.

John couldn’t help himself and shouted back. “I literally do not know what you are talking about!”

“Is that so?” Baines replied calmly. He nodded at Jenny. She reached out suddenly and grabbed Martha, holding her blaster to Martha’s head. Martha let out a yelp of surprise and then shouted indignantly at Jenny. “Get off me!”

“She’s your friend, isn’t she? The Doctor and his human companion?” She pressed the blaster harder against Martha’s skull. “Doesn’t this scare you enough to change back?”

“I don’t know what you _mean_!” he shouted, becoming more and more panicked.

“Wait a minute,” Jenny said, calculation in her voice. “The maid told me about Smith and the new librarian…” She pointed at Rose, who was still holding John’s hand. “That woman, there!”

Rose barely had time to react before Mr. Clarke reached out and grabbed her, jerking her away from John and holding her the same way Jenny held Martha. “Let’s have you, then!”

Rose narrowly managed to keep from screaming, but found herself in one of those rare situations where she wished fervently that she did not lack a gun at her hip. She stared at John, willing him to remain calm.

“Have you enjoyed it, Doctor?” Baines’ voice was mocking. “Being human? Has it taught you wonderful things, are you richer, better, wiser? Then let’s see you answer this.” He took another menacing step forward, the end of the blaster now less than a foot away from John’s forehead. “Which one of them do you want us to kill? Maid or librarian? Your friend – or your lover?” He smiled coldly. “Your choice.”


	16. Chapter 15

Rose stayed still in the arms of her captor, gauging strength of grip and trying to figure the best way to hit him so that she could get free and grab his blaster before any of the other members of the Family could get off a shot. But as Baines gave John his ultimatum – kill Martha or kill Rose? – Rose found herself having her very first uncharitable thought about John. She was very certain that she had never and _would_ never see a look of such utter panic and confusion on the Doctor’s face. A small part of her wanted to shout at John to pull himself together.

But there was another, larger part of her that was moved to pity at the anguish that the choice, and his inability to think of way to avoid having to make it, gave him. His gaze flew between Martha and Rose, and Rose could see that he was well on his way to being convinced that none of them were going to get out of this alive.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Latimer staring at the scene before him, hand still jammed in his pocket. It almost appeared that he was listening to something very intently, but the situation hardly required such concentration. At least not on the part of a small boy, she thought.

“Make your decision!” Jenny shouted angrily. Apparently this was taking too long for her taste.

“Perhaps,” Baines began smugly, “if the human heart breaks, the Time Lord will emerge.”

As the Family spoke, Rose saw Latimer pull his hand out of his pocket. She saw immediately that her earlier thought that he’d been holding onto something contained therein was true. And whilst it was hard to be certain from across the room, she thought perhaps he was holding a watch. She caught Martha’s eye, trying to get across the need to be ready. If Tim opened the watch, that was likely to be the opportunity they needed.

Martha saw Rose trying to get her attention, but before she could manage to figure out what the other woman was mouthing, a loud voice sounded out, filling the room. _Time Lord_ , it said.

Latimer had opened the watch.

“It’s him,” Baines exclaimed. Mr. Clarke and Jenny both began scanning the room for the source of the sound, their attention torn away from their captives and their grips slackened. Rose and Martha took full advantage of the distraction.

“Now!” Rose shouted, and in tandem she and Martha spun around. They each managed to relieve their captors of their blasters and get out of their loosened holds.

“Right!” Martha shouted. She had Jenny in a stranglehold with one arm and held the blaster straight out at Baines with the other. 

Rose shoved Mr. Clarke towards the little girl, keeping the blaster trained in their direction with a steady double-handed grip. She backed slowly towards John, and out the corner of her eye she noticed Latimer snap the watch shut and shove it in his pocket again. He cocked his head to the side then, again appearing to be listening intently. Rose felt her spirits rise ever so slightly. If the Doctor was in that watch, then perhaps he was communicating somehow with the boy. She knew the Doctor was telepathic. Perhaps that applied even when he was merely an essence trapped in a watch.

“One more move,” Martha continued, and Rose could hear the ragged edges of controlled panic in her tone, “and I shoot,” she finished.

Baines looked from Martha to Rose, his expression full of twisted excitement. “Oh, your women are _full of fire_ , Doctor.”

“Shut up!” Martha yelled. “Just shut up!” She fired the blaster at the ceiling and then returned her aim to Baines.

“Careful, Son of Mine,” said Mr. Clarke, eying Rose nervously. “This is all for you, so that you can live forever.”

Rose had edged her way to John. Keeping one arm extended with the blaster aimed at the Family, she reached out with the other for John. She risked a glance over her shoulder to find him staring at her with a mixture of fear and awe. “John,” she whispered urgently. “I know this is difficult, but please. Take my hand.” She looked pleadingly at him over her shoulder again, and he slowly slipped his hand into hers.

“I’ll shoot you down,” Baines said to Martha.

“Try it,” she said. “We’ll die together.”

Without turning to look at him, Rose whispered again to John. “We’ll have to be ready to go, and quickly. You need to follow me, and don’t ask questions until we’re safe.”

He squeezed her hand mutely, and she took that as an affirmative response.

“Would you really pull the trigger? You look so scared.”

“Scared and holding a gun,” Rose called out, forcing Baines to acknowledge that there were two blasters trained on his family rather than just one. “That’s a good combination. Me, I’ve got training, I’m steady as a rock.” She gestured with the hand holding the blaster, which was indeed rock steady. Pete would have been proud. “But her, look at her shake. You really want to risk it?”

Martha allowed her arm to shake a little more than it already was even as she bristled at Rose’s comparison of the two of them. She knew she wasn't _really_ shaking that much, that Rose was merely trying to get under the skin of the Family and convince them that they were at a disadvantage. But that didn’t make the comparison sting any less, because Rose was right – Martha was shaking more than Rose was.

“My finger might slip any minute,” Martha added, letting more of her panic color her tone.

John found himself holding his breath as he looked wildly from Rose to Martha to Baines and back again. He was terrified and confused and this night was _not_ turning out the way he’d wanted it to turn out. A dance and a nice walk home, that’s all he’d wanted. Well, maybe a kiss or two at Rose’s door, but that was really all. Whatever excitement he’d thought his life had lacked, this was not how he’d wanted to find it. Guns the likes of which he’d never seen, his maid and a woman he was rapidly falling in love with wielding them as if it were nothing new? Not to mention being threatened with death if he didn’t change into someone who was nothing but a dream!

A moment later, John could breathe again as Baines lowered his weapon and took a step backwards, ranging himself in a line with Mr. Clarke and the balloon-toting girl.

“Rose,” Martha said, still holding Jenny and keeping her blaster trained on the aliens in front of her. “Get everyone outside.”

“Are you sure you don’t-”

“Just go! I’ll catch up to you. Get the Doctor and the others out!”

Rose nodded. “Come on, John.” Keeping one eye on the Family and one hand clutched around the blaster, she tugged John towards the door. “Everyone follow me, let’s go!” The others in the room seemed frozen, so she dropped John’s hand and began nudging and pushing. “Come on, then, can’t you see they’re mad?” She didn’t have the time to convince them they were aliens, so madness would have to suffice. “That’s all that matters, aye? Let’s go, come on.”

She noticed Latimer hanging back and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Go on, outside.”

Latimer looked into her eyes and in his mind the Doctor’s voice was shouting. _Rose, my Rose. The Bad Wolf who burned like the sun. Defender of the Earth. Returned to me, but not yet. Not yet._ Latimer nodded at Rose and jogged out into the hallway, following the crowd of people into the night.

“What about you?” John shouted at Martha as the room cleared.

“Mr. Smith,” she said tightly, “I think you should go with Rose.”

John hesitated for a moment, but then Rose was there grabbing his hand and tugging. “Come on, John! Martha will be fine; she knows what she’s doing!”

With one last concerned look at Martha, John followed Rose into the hallway. They raced down the corridor and outside. John caught sight of Latimer and dropped Rose’s hand, racing to the boy and grabbing his shoulders.

“Latimer, run to the school, tell the headmaster-”

“Don’t touch me!” the boy exclaimed, wrenching himself from John’s grasp. “You’re as bad as them!” He stumbled backwards, bumping into Rose.

 _Not yet!_ The Doctor’s voice was insistent in Latimer’s mind. He dodged away from Rose before she could get a grip on his arm. He shook his head as he raced away.

Rose let him go. If she was right – if he had the watch and the Doctor was instructing him on what to do – then he would return when the Doctor was good and ready for him to return. If she was wrong and the boy wasn’t in possession of the watch, then it didn’t matter where he went.

She glanced back at the village hall, hoping Martha was faring well. She’d wait a few minutes, but then they would have to make their way to the TARDIS without her.

\-----

Inside, Martha released Jenny but kept the blaster trained on the Family, now lined up in front of her. “Don’t try anything!” she yelled. “I’m warning you, or sonny boy gets it!”

“She’s so brave, this one,” Baines said derisively.

“I should have taken her form,” Jenny said as the four of them advanced on Martha slowly. “Much more fun. So much _spirit_.”

Martha backed up, hands shaking more now that she was alone with the Family. She tightened her grip on the blaster. “What happened to Jenny, is she gone?”

“She is consumed. Her body is mine.”

The Family continued forward and Martha continued backing away, making certain that she was doing so in the direction of the door. “You mean she’s dead?”

“Yes,” Jenny – or rather, the alien inhabiting Jenny’s body, Martha supposed – said in reply. “And she went with precious little dignity. All that _screaming_.”

Martha knew she was close to the door. She almost thought she’d make it there without incident when she was grabbed from behind by one of the scarecrow soldiers. She screamed and struggled out of its grip, getting away almost immediately but losing her hold on the blaster in the process.

She ran through the hallway and out the building, only to find Rose and John standing outside waiting for her. “What are you doing? Run! I knew he was rubbish as a human, but I’d have thought you’d be smarter than to wait!”

“First rule of my team at Torchwood,” Rose said as they ran. “Never leave anyone behind unless you have to.” She smiled then. “If you’d been thirty seconds longer, we’d have been gone.”

“We have to go back to the school,” John shouted. “We have to warn them!”

“No,” Rose shouted back. “The Family is after _you_. If we go to the school, we bring the Family down on them.”

“But the watch,” Martha yelled. “We have to find it!”

“I think I know where it is,” Rose said. “If I’m right, we just have to wait for it to come to us.”

“What are you talking about?” Martha asked, frustrated.

“I’ll explain once we get to the TARDIS.”

“The what?” John asked in alarm.

“The blue box, John. It’s real, and we’re going there.”

As they ran, Rose desperately hoped she was right in her theories about the boy, Latimer, and the watch she thought he carried. If she was, then the Doctor would lead him to the TARDIS. Of course, she thought, their very presence in the TARDIS might lead the Family to it. It was true that they would never be able to get in once the doors were shut, but if Latimer didn’t get there first it might be impossible for him to get past the Family or their scarecrows.

Eventually, they reached the barn where the TARDIS was hidden. Rose slowed her pace from a run to a slow walk, gesturing for John and Martha to do the same.

“Come on, Rose,” Martha said impatiently. “We’ve got to get inside, it’s not safe out here.”

Rose raised the blaster. “And it might not be safe in there, either. We’ve got to be careful, in case they’ve already found the TARDIS.”

The three of them crept slowly towards the barn. Rose went in first, whipping the blaster around in every direction, making sure the barn was clear. The TARDIS glowed dimly in the corner of the empty barn. Rose sighed in relief. “All clear,” she whispered, gesturing for John and Martha to follow her.

John gasped when he caught sight of the TARDIS. “Impossible,” he breathed. “It’s the magic box. It _can’t_ be.”

Rose slipped her hand into his and squeezed gently. “I’m sorry, John. But I’m afraid it can.”

Martha brushed past them, pulling her TARDIS key out of her pocket. She unlocked the door and then held it open so that John and Rose could come in behind her. John let out another gasp once he stepped into the console room.

“It’s bigger on the inside!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *I couldn't help myself, I had to have John do the thing! I also imagine that the Doctor will always remember the moment with a mix of shame and delight. I wrote this fic in November 2007, and it's now April 2013, and that moment remains one of my favorite things I've ever written, lol.
> 
> Anyway, we've now reached the section of the fic where I started changing things round a bit more significantly than I had been previously. (For example, going to the TARDIS instead of back to the school after the attack at the dance. Since John was with Rose rather than Joan, I felt that Rose's instinct would be to insist on taking John to the TARDIS, and that gave me an excuse to make John do the thing, lol.) I hope y'all continue to enjoy the increased changes. I've really appreciated the kudos and comments I've received so far, so thank you very much to those of you who have left them! You guys are awesome <3


	17. Chapter 16

A few moments after Martha’s hasty exit from the village hall, the Family emerged, sniffing the air.

“Can you smell them?” Baines asked Jenny impatiently.

“Son of Mine, their scent is scattered. They are running quickly.”

He growled in frustration. “What do we know about the librarian?”

A green glow lit her face, and she adopted a look of intense concentration. “This body holds some residual memories of her. She only got here shortly before we did. She… woke up in the fields with amnesia, and immediately attached herself to the Doctor.”

Baines shook his head. “And the maid?”

“Martha,” said Jenny. “She and this body used to be friends. She used to go for walks, but Jenny did not know where.” She looked over at Mr. Clarke. “Husband of Mine, begin a search of the surrounding area. Ever-increasing circles, and no stone left unturned. See where young Martha was going.”

Mr. Clarke nodded. “Soldiers!” he called, and a number of the scarecrows followed him.

“As for us, Mother of Mine,” said Baines. “We’re going to school. We checked Smith’s rooms, now we shall check the library.” He looked at the soldiers who had not left with Mr. Clarke. “Soldiers! Stay at the ready, but keep to the shadows. We don’t want to put the school on alert, now do we?”

As the three remaining Family members began making their way to the school, Timothy Latimer was just arriving there. He snuck in the building and quietly made his way to the hallway where the library was located. He slipped into the library and huddled in a corner, listening to the whisper of the watch.

Soon, the Family stood outside the gates of the school, gazing at it appraisingly.

“Mother of Mine,” Baines said. “Why don’t you and Sister of Mine wait here while I go inside and make sure the coast is clear?” He sniffed the air. “I don’t smell the teacher. Keep watch; perhaps he will make his way here soon.”

Jenny nodded, and Baines made his way into the school.

\-----

As Latimer sat in a ray of moonlight, he was suddenly gripped by a vision of himself and one of the other boys, Hutchinson, on a battlefield far away. He saved Hutchinson’s life, and then the vision shifted. Mr. Smith – no, Latimer realized, not Mr. Smith, but the Doctor – and Rose stood next to a funny blue box. They were smiling at someone, and Latimer realized that it was him they were smiling at. Then Rose reached down and hugged him, and the Doctor shook his hand.

“Maybe…” Latimer mused aloud. “Maybe I’m supposed to help.”

 _Yes, you’re needed_ , the Doctor said from the watch Latimer was flipping over in his hands as he thought. _Keep me hidden while the Family is here. Keep me safe. Beware!_

“Beware of what?” Latimer said aloud.

 _Him!_ the watch hissed. Latimer looked up in alarm and found himself staring at Baines, who was standing at the other end of an aisle of books. He sniffed a little, and Latimer swallowed convulsively. “Keep away!” he said, his words coming out stronger than he’d thought they would.

“If it isn’t little Latimer,” Baines said, tilting his head to the side.

“I saw you at the dance,” Latimer said, getting to his feet and clutching the watch. “You were with that family; you’re one of them.”

“What are you hiding?”

“Nothing.” Latimer shifted his hand so that it was behind his back.

“What have you got there?” Baines took one threatening step forward.

“Nothing,” Latimer insisted.

Baines smiled tightly. “Show me, little boy.”

Latimer straightened, an idea entering his mind. Since he heard no objections from the watch or the man contained therein, he decided it must be a good one. “You might be an alien,” Latimer began. “But you’re still in the shape of a boy. How strong is he, do you think? Does he really want to see this?”

With those words, he opened the watch and held it out. A golden stream of light shot out, aimed straight at Baines’ head. Latimer could see a shadow of what Baines was seeing – the Doctor, cold and angry, towering over an enemy with hatred in his eyes.

Baines turned and ran, momentarily shaken. He would need some small amount of time to collect himself. He raced out to his Family. “Time Lord!” he shouted at them as he approached.

Jenny nodded; she and the little girl had seen flashes of what Latimer had thrown at Baines. “Inside the device!”

“Everything he is concealed away in the hands of a school boy,” Baines murmured, already recovering from his brush with the Doctor’s unrestricted rage.

“I had to let him go then, but now we know that he’s all we need to find. The boy, the watch…”

Jenny sniffed the air. “He’s running,” she said. “He’s already run off.”

Baines grimaced in annoyance. The green glow lit his face again. “Father of Mine,” he said, “have you found anything yet?”

“No trace of them,” Mr. Clarke responded, his own face glowing green as well. “But my circles have not gotten very wide yet.”

“We’re wasting time,” Baines said. “All this hunting, for the boy, the man, the watch. We must make them come to us.” He grinned tightly. “Father of Mine, meet us back at the ship. It’s time to bring out the big guns.” He laughed a little. “Literally.”

\-----

Inside the TARDIS, John was staring past Rose toward the console. “You recognize it, don’t you?” said Martha quietly.

“I’ve never seen it before in my life,” he insisted numbly.

“John,” Rose said gently. “You wrote about it. In your journal, remember? Not just the blue box, but the inside? The console?”

“I’m not… I’m John Smith,” he said, his voice strained. “That’s all I want to be, John Smith.” He turned to Rose, clutching at her hands. “With his life, and his job, and his love.” Rose felt tears well in her eyes. “Why can’t I be John Smith? Isn’t he a good man?”

“Yes,” Rose said, her voice breaking on the word. “Yes, he is.”

“Why can’t I stay?” He stared at Rose pleadingly, but she had no answers. Her heart was breaking for him, and a tear slipped down her cheek.

“We need the Doctor,” Martha said matter-of-factly from her position next to the console. John turned to look at her accusingly.

“And who am I then, nothing? I’m just a story?”

He gave her one last accusing stare and then he wrenched his hands from Rose’s and pushed back out the TARDIS doors.

“Wait,” Martha said. “It’s not safe!”

John paid her no heed, and Rose wiped her eyes. “I’ll stay with him,” she said quietly. She followed him out into the barn, shutting the TARDIS doors behind her. Martha stared helplessly at the closed doors. Why, she thought, did _nothing_ go as planned with the Doctor? Why was _nothing_ easy? She glanced at the console, but there were no answers written on post-its stuck where she would see them, nor did the monitor reveal anything but the circles and dots only the Doctor could read.

Martha sighed and plopped down on the captain’s bench. It was going to be a long night.

John had gone no farther than the door to the barn. He was leaning against the doorpost, looking out into the night. Rose came up behind him and laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Come back inside, John. It isn’t safe out here.”

“Is it safe in there?” He shuddered a little. “It isn’t natural.”

Rose laughed a little. “Trust me, you get used to it.”

“Who _are_ you?” he asked then. “Are you really suffering from amnesia?”

“No,” Rose admitted. “I’m not. I’m Rose Tyler.”

“So when I dreamed of you?”

“It was because I used to travel with the Doctor.” She glanced around the woods surrounding the barn. Though there was still no sign of the Family or their scarecrow soldiers, she would have felt better if they were safe in the TARDIS. “Come on now, John. Let’s go back inside.”

John sighed and let himself be led into the blue box. Rose shut the door firmly behind them and led John up towards the console. He took a deep breath and glanced from Rose to Martha. “I have to go to them,” he said quickly. “Before anyone else dies.”

“You can’t,” said Rose.

“There must be something you can do,” John said, fixing his gaze on Martha. “You must know of something that can help!”

“Not without the watch,” Martha said sadly. Rose opened her mouth to say something about Latimer, but John spoke before she could.

“You’re this Doctor’s companion, don’t you help? What exactly do you _do_ for him?” His voice rose in frustration and anger. “Why does he _need_ you?”

Martha glanced at Rose. “Because he’s lonely,” she said sadly. Rose looked down at the floor, fresh pain flooding her heart as she flashed on the Doctor as he’d looked at Bad Wolf Bay, all sadness and loss and piercing regret for things unsaid.

“And that’s what you want me to become?” John asked pointedly. Martha looked down at her lap and twisted her fingers together guiltily.

Before she or Rose could formulate a reply, they heard a knock on the door of the TARDIS. All three of them turned to look at the door. “Do you think it’s them?” John asked.

“I’m not an expert,” Martha said from the bench, “but I don’t think scarecrows knock.”

Rose nodded. She brushed a hand over John’s shoulder and then made her way down the ramp to the door. She opened it a crack and peered through. She nearly melted against the door in relief when she was faced with Timothy Latimer.

“I brought you this,” he said. Rose looked down and saw that he was holding out his hand, and in his palm rested an old-fashioned fob watch, covered with Gallifreyan symbols.

“Come inside, Tim,” she said. She took the watch from him. “Thank you for bringing it.”


	18. Chapter 17

Latimer stepped inside the TARDIS doors, staring around the console room in wonder. He’d seen it in visions; the Doctor had often shown it to him. But even that didn’t prepare him for the incongruous sight of it after stepping inside what looked like a relatively small wooden box.

Rose walked wordlessly up the ramp, past John and around to where Martha sat. “Is this the watch that was missing?”

Martha gasped softly as Rose dropped the watch into her hand. “Yes, thank God.”

She got to her feet and held the watch out to John. “Hold it.”

John looked at her hand as if she were holding a poisonous snake. “I won’t.”

“Please, just hold it.”

Latimer spoke up from the bottom of the ramp. “It told me to find you.” He took a few steps forward. “It wants to be held.”

“Tim,” Rose said curiously. “If you’ve had the watch the whole time, why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“Because it was waiting.” Latimer took another step forward and stopped a few feet from where John stood. “And then because I was scared.”

“Of what?” asked John.

“The Doctor,” Latimer replied immediately.

“Why?”

“Because…” Latimer appeared to be searching for words. John’s gaze was locked on the boy’s face. “I’ve seen him. He’s… like fire, and ice, and rage.” He took another few steps forward as he spoke, coming closer to John with every word. “He’s like the night, and the storm in the heart of the sun.”

“Stop it,” John whispered.

“He’s ancient and forever. He burns at the center of time and he can see the turn of the universe.”

“Stop it, I said stop it!”

“And…” Latimer continued, ignoring John’s pleas. “He’s wonderful.”

Rose and Martha both smiled then. It was an incredibly good description of the Doctor, especially coming from such a young boy. Martha withdrew John’s journal from the pocket of her coat, where she’d tucked it before abandoning the school earlier.

“It’s all here,” she said softly. “In this journal. You wrote it all down.”

“Those are just stories,” John insisted.

Rose smiled sadly. “You know they’re not.”

He was about to say something else when they heard a loud boom outside the TARDIS. Martha took a reflexive step toward the door, but Rose stopped her. “It might not be safe.” She pressed a couple of buttons, and the console screen flared to life, showing the barn outside to be deserted still. Through the door of the barn, they could see bright streams of fire falling through the sky.

“They’re destroying the village,” Martha said incredulously.

John stared at the screen for a moment, then grabbed the watch out of Martha’s hand.

“John,” Rose said, just trying to get his attention. She had no idea what to say once she did. It wasn’t that she didn’t want the Doctor back – she did, and more to the point she knew that they _needed_ the Doctor back. But still she was worried about John.

John held the watch cradled in both his hands, close to his face.

“Can you hear it?” Latimer asked.

John responded without looking up. “He’s asleep. Waiting to waken.”

“Why did he speak to me?”

“Oh, low-level telepathic field, you were born with it. Just an extra-” John shuddered and cut himself off, fear crossing his face as he looked up at Martha and Rose. “Is that how he talks?”

“That’s him,” Martha said, smiling. Rose stood silent, emotions warring in her heart. She’d longed for the Doctor for so long, even more so in the last two days after being confronted by this man who was but wasn’t him. But then she’d grown fond of John, and given more time she was sure her feelings would have grown stronger. His already had, she knew, and seeing him in such distress over the Doctor hurt almost as much as missing the Doctor did. Martha, oblivious to or ignoring Rose’s distress, continued. “All you have to do is open it, and he’s back.”

There was another explosion outside, and John’s expression grew even more distressed. Rose glanced at the monitor, moved toward the door. “I’m going to check outside, see if they’re close.” She brushed past Martha, John, and Latimer and made her way to the door, then slipped out.

John watched her leave and then returned his gaze to Martha. “You knew this all along? You knew and yet you let Rose and I…”

“Rose knew who you were from almost the beginning, and I didn’t know how to stop you even if she didn’t!” Martha insisted. “He gave me a list of things to watch out for, but that wasn’t on it!”

“Falling in love, that didn’t even occur to him?”

“No,” Martha said, glancing at the door through which Rose had left.

“What sort of man is that? And now you expect me to die?”

“It was always going to end, though,” Martha insisted. “The Family’s got a limited lifespan, that’s why they need to consume a Time Lord. Otherwise, three months, and they die.”

“So your job was to execute me.”

“People are _dying_ out there,” Martha said, gesturing toward the door of the TARDIS. “They need him, and I need him. ‘Cause you’ve got _no_ idea what he’s like, I’ve only just met him, it wasn’t even that long ago, but… he is _everything_ , he is just everything to me. And he doesn’t even look at me, but I don’t care. ‘Cause I love him to bits.” She grimaced slightly, thankful that Rose was outside. Of course, she hadn’t had time to ask the Doctor if he would retain the memory of what had happened whilst he was John Smith. “And I hope to _God_ he won’t remember me saying this,” she muttered.

Another explosion sounded and Rose slipped back inside the doors. “The blasts are getting closer,” she said. “But they don’t seem to have found our hiding place. They must be counting on the bombardment drawing us out.”

John’s head whipped up at Rose’s entrance, his gaze fixed on her. He didn’t want to leave her, didn’t want to lose her. “I could give them this,” he said suddenly. “Just the watch. I should have thought of it before!” He rushed towards Rose. “Then they can leave Earth alone and I could stay as I am!”

“You can’t do that,” Martha shouted as he passed her.

“If they want the Doctor, they can have him!” John said as he reached Rose’s side.

“He’ll never let you do it,” Martha insisted.

“If they get what they want,” John said, talking to Rose and ignoring Martha, “then… then…”

“Then it all ends in destruction,” Rose said calmly, sadly. John froze in front of her. She reached up and laid her hand on his cheek. “We’ve never met them before, the Doctor and I, but at the end of your journal, you spoke of them. They would live forever, the Family. They’d live forever and spread war across the stars.”

Tears of fear and desolation began to form in John’s eyes as his mind fought against the inevitable. Rose dropped her hand from his cheek and turned to Martha and Latimer. “Martha, why don’t you take Timothy and wait outside? I’d like some time alone with John.”

Martha nodded bleakly. She picked up the blaster Rose had set down on the console and held out an arm to Latimer. He let her lead him out into the dark barn, leaving John and Rose alone in the console room.

Martha dragged a bale of hay over to the TARDIS, and she and Latimer sat down on it. Another explosion ripped through the sky, and Martha slung an arm around the boy’s shoulders. He huddled close, for once wishing that he would have a vision of what was to come.

As soon as Martha and Latimer were out of sight, John broke down, his breath hitching on a sob. Rose, her own eyes welling with tears, pulled him against her. He buried his face in her shoulder. She held him for a moment and let him cry, then led him to sit on the captain’s bench. She sat down beside him.

He held the watch in his hand and stared down at it silently. “If I could change this, I would,” Rose said softly. “If I could make it so you could stay and he could come back… But I can’t.”

“Does he love you?” John said, looking at Rose. “Does he love you like I can love you?”

Rose felt a tear slip down her cheek. “What do you think? In your dreams, how did you feel about me?”

John closed his eyes. The dreams of being the Doctor, traveling with his Perfect Rose – they were the reason John had fallen so swiftly for the woman sitting beside him. He didn’t want to believe that they were true, but all the evidence was in front of him or beside him.

“Do you love him?” he asked then, meeting Rose’s eyes pleadingly.

“Oh, God, yes,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry, but yes.”

John nodded. “And me?”

Rose’s breath hitched and she bit back a sob. “You are such a dear man,” she said, reaching up to touch his face again. “When we first met yesterday, I thought you couldn’t possibly be the Doctor but I was drawn to you anyway. And before I knew that you were the Doctor, I…” she took a breath and wondered again how much the Doctor would remember of his time as a human. “I began to like you for who you are, not for who you looked like. When you kissed me, it was _you_ I was kissing back.”

“Then it was real.” John gazed into Rose’s watery eyes as she nodded slowly. “Why can’t I stay with you?”

Rose sniffled. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out one of the photos she’d tucked there before. “This is us – me and the Doctor, I mean. His life isn’t all horrible things like what’s out there.”

John looked at the picture, took in the wide smiles and the way the Doctor’s arms were wrapped around Rose’s shoulders. Rose put her hand on top of John’s, over the watch so that they were both holding it together.

Suddenly, they both saw visions of the two of them living a life. Getting married, having children. Rose nearly sobbed at the vision of them having a walk, children running around them and one swinging happily between them. John smiled at her, and the vision shifted to the end of their possible life. An end where everyone was safe, everyone was happy, and John could die having lived a full life with Rose.

Rose couldn’t say for certain, but she thought she heard a faint echo of the Doctor’s voice. _Have a fantastic life._

“Did you see?” John asked as the visions faded. “Can he give you a life like that?

Rose shook her head, swallowing more tears. “No,” she whispered. “He can’t.”

“And yet I _could_ ,” John said.

Rose took his face in her hands and pressed a quick kiss to his lips. “But at what cost?” she asked, her face inches from his. “You are a wonderful man, a good man. But it’s not just the Family and the here and now that we’re talking about risking if the Doctor never comes back. He saves people and worlds all the time. Every day, and no one ever knows it, no one ever sees. But he’s there, keeping _everyone_ safe.”

“And I can’t do that,” John said quietly. “I can’t even save myself.”

“John, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She dropped her hands to her lap and stared down at them.

John nodded. “I know.” He turned the watch over and traced his fingers over the symbols. Though he couldn’t really read them, they made an odd sort of sense to him. He wondered idly what they meant, until he realized that he was only drawing the moment out, trying to stay himself, stay alive for a precious few more minutes.

“Rose,” he said softly. She looked up from her intense study of the wrinkles of her knuckles and met his serious gaze.

“Yes, John?”

“I’m so glad I met you,” he said, and she nearly burst into tears. If John was hardly like her second Doctor despite having the same body, he was _nothing_ like her first Doctor, and yet here were his words coming out of John’s mouth.

“Me, too,” she managed, a bit breathlessly.

“I could have loved you well,” John said, reaching up to stroke her cheek. “Promise me that you won’t forget me.” He gently pulled her head towards his, stopping an inch or so away from kissing her.

“I promise,” she whispered. And then he kissed her, firmly and thoroughly. Rose let herself sink into the kiss, her hands rising of their own accord to tangle in his hair. He changed the angle; let his own hand drift into her hair.

Still kissing her, he shifted his grip on the watch so that the button was by his thumb. He broke the kiss momentarily. “I love you, Rose,” he said, capturing her lips with his again before she could formulate a reply. Then he pressed the button and opened the watch.

Rose felt the change in the kiss as golden light swam in front of her closed eyes, bright even through her eyelids. She clutched at his hair involuntarily, not altogether sure whether she was trying to hang on to John or grab for the Doctor.


	19. Chapter 18

The first thing the Doctor registered was that it had most definitely not been a full three months since he’d become human. Time Lord superpowers being what they were, he was fairly certain it was more along the lines of two months and one week, give or take a few days. He couldn’t be more specific than that, because the second thing he registered was that he was kissing someone, and unless he was hallucinating, that someone was Rose Tyler.

After realizing that, his mind was thoroughly occupied with the somewhat opposing tasks of arguing just how impossible it was that she was here and processing the feel of her lips clinging to his, her hands tangled in his hair. Which caused a whole new parallel path of brainpower, because wasn’t it _fantastic_ , her hands tugging on his big hair and wasn’t it nice that he’d regenerated with longer hair?

As his Time Lord mind took over more and more fully from the human mind he’d had as John Smith, more and more trains of thought left their stations and the Doctor was suddenly flooded with memories of his time as a human – including the times that John Smith had been brave and daring enough to kiss Rose. A horrible and terrifying thought occurred to him. What if this wonderful, hearts-stopping kiss was only happening because Rose still thought she was kissing John Smith? On a gasp, the Doctor tore his lips from hers.

“Rose,” he said raggedly. She opened her eyes and met his apprehensive gaze with a warm smile.

“Doctor,” she breathed. “My Doctor.”

If she had anything else to say on the subject, it was lost as the Doctor captured her lips again in a joyous kiss. He pulled them into a standing position and then hoisted Rose up off her feet, spinning her around, her toes just inches from banging into the console.

Soon enough, the spinning stopped and the Doctor set Rose on her feet. He didn’t let go of her completely, though, so she stayed standing in the circle of his arms. Despite the chaos outside the TARDIS and the emotional turmoil of the past few hours, Rose felt completely and utterly safe for the first time in a very long time.

“How is this even possible?” the Doctor asked, leaning down so that their foreheads were touching.

“I don’t know,” Rose said. “I was having lunch in London in Pete’s World, and then suddenly I was here, two days ago.” She shook her head lightly. “Wasn’t even working a case or anything, just… bam, nineteen-thirteen, my own universe.”

“And you’re real,” he said wonderingly. “You’re really real? This isn’t a trick?”

Rose shook her head, unshed tears of joy making her eyes glitter in the low light. “No, Doctor. I’m really real, and this isn’t a trick.” She trailed one hand down from his hair to his cheek. “I’m back. And here to stay.” She thought then of Martha, and dropped her hand from his face to his chest. “If you still want me to stay, that is.”

“Rose Tyler,” the Doctor said seriously. “There is nothing I want more.”

He was leaning down to kiss her again when another explosion sounded from outside the TARDIS.

“Oh, yes, almost forgot,” the Doctor exclaimed, letting go of Rose and racing back to the captain’s bench. He leaned over and picked up the watch off the floor, where he’d dropped it after John had let him out. “We’ve got a planet to save, aliens to stop! There’s work to do, Rose Tyler!”

He bounded down the ramp and stuck his head out the door. “Martha!” he exclaimed, catching sight of her and Latimer on their hay bale. “Good to see you!”

Martha jumped to her feet, her heart leaping in her chest. The Doctor was back! Everything was going to be fine. Latimer got to his feet more slowly, unsure how to react to meeting the man – alien, really – who’d both terrified and astounded him.

“Timothy!” the Doctor exclaimed. “Good man, you’ve done so well!” He opened the door wider and gestured them in. “Come on, both of you. Inside, there’s plans to be made, plots to be hatched, planets to be saved.”

He shut the door behind them with a firm click, and began explaining the plan.

\-----

In the woods, the Family was huddled in their spaceship controlling the bombardment of the village. They had turned off the cloaking device so that when Mr. Smith came bumbling in, as they were certain he would, he would be able to find them easily. Humans were so simple, they thought, so easily manipulated. This, they were certain, would be an easy victory.

Baines let another missile rip through the sky. “Blast them to dust!” he yelled gleefully. “Then fuse the dust into glass; then shatter them all over again!”

He was distracted from his task by the sound of someone stumbling through the ship. In unison with the other members of the Family, Baines turned around to see either John Smith or the Doctor coming toward them, fear etched on his features.

“Just…” he said, falling sideways and catching himself on the wall, flipping a number of switches in the process. “Just stop the bombardment.” He steadied himself, but still looked terrified. “That’s all I’m asking, I’ll do anything you want. Just stop.”

“Say please,” Baines said smugly.

“Please.”

Baines turned and shut down the cannon behind him. Jenny did the same, then looked back at the man who’d come into the ship. “Wait a minute,” she said. She sniffed deeply. “Still human.”

“I… I can’t pretend to understand, not for a second, but I want you to know I’m innocent in all of this!” He looked at the Family pleadingly. “He _made_ me John Smith, it’s not like I had any control over it!” He gestured wildly with his arms as he said it, and hit another set of switches as he did so. He staggered away from them, apparently in fear.

“He didn’t just make himself human,” Jenny said in disgust. “He made himself an idiot.”

“Same thing, isn’t it?” Baines asked stiffly.

“I don’t care about this Doctor, or your family.” He crossed to the other side of the ship. “I just want you to go. So, I’ve made my choice.” He held out his hand, and in it rested the fob watch. “You can have it.”

The Family stared at him in momentary disbelief. They’d expected easy, but honestly. Would it really be _that_ easy?

“Just take it!” he shouted. “Take him away!”

Baines stepped forward triumphantly. “At last.”

The man stepped back as if he were trying to leave, and Baines grabbed him by the shirtfront. “Don’t think that’s saved your life!” he said coldly. He shoved the man away from him, and he fell against the wall, flipping more switches as he tried to catch himself.

“Family of Mine,” Baines said, holding the watch up. “Now we shall have the lives of a Time Lord.”

He opened the watch, and the four Family members each sniffed deeply. But no golden light came from the watch, and Baines shut it angrily. “It’s _empty_.”

Four angry gazes turned to the man on the floor, who still looked terrified. “Where’s he gone?” he said, sounding pitiful.

“You tell _me_ ,” Baines responded angrily, tossing the watch at the man’s head.

He caught it on the fly and pushed to his feet. “Oh, I think the explanation might be that you’ve been fooled by a simple olfactory misdirection.” He looked appraisingly at the watch, then back to the family. “A little bit like ventriloquism of the nose. It’s an elementary trick,” the Doctor continued, “in certain parts of the galaxy.”

He reached into his pocket as he spoke, pulled out his glasses, and slipped them on. He continued speaking without appearing to take a breath. “But it has gotta be said, I don’t like the look of that hydrochronometer.” He gestured around the ship to illustrate his point. “It seems to be indicating that you’ve got energy feedback running all the way through the retro stabilizers and _back_ into the primary heat converters.” He gave an exaggerated grimace and shook his head. “Cause if there’s one thing you shouldn’t have done… you shouldn’t have let me press all those buttons.”

He stared at them seriously for the space of a breath. “But,” he exclaimed as he began to make his way out of the ship. “I will give you one piece of advice. Run!”

As he said the word, the ship’s green lighting flashed into a bright reddish-orange and back again, whilst a siren began blaring. “Get out!” Baines shouted, eyes wide in horror. He ran for the door, followed closely by the rest of the Family.

They ran across the field, the Doctor a number of yards ahead of them. They hadn’t gotten far when their ship exploded behind them and the blast knocked them to the ground. The Doctor stopped running and walked slowly back to where they had fallen. He stared down at them ominously.

He retrieved four sets of restraints from where he’d stashed them on the edge of the clearing and bound the Family members. Silently, his face a mask of icy rage, he led them back to the TARDIS.

He had tried to give them a chance to just die. He’d run from them and hidden himself away, taking human form in an attempt to avoid detection long enough to avoid having to stop the Family. But they had followed him, hunted him down and in their greed, their unstoppable desire to live forever, they had destroyed lives, murdered innocent people. They’d threatened Martha. They’d threatened _Rose_. Rose Tyler had been brought back to him somehow and _they’d_ tried to take her away again.

It was unforgivable, the sum total of their actions. Death, he thought, was too good for them. They wanted to live forever, did they? Well, he’d give them that, wouldn’t he?

As he walked back to the TARDIS, prisoners in tow, he planned their punishments.


	20. Chapter 19

The waiting was the worst part, Rose knew that from experience. One last hug, and she’d watched the Doctor walk out of the TARDIS with the same pit of worry and fear in the bottom of her stomach that she’d felt as she’d watched him descend into the center of a nameless planet. She _knew_ the voice in the back of her mind that asked if this would be the time he didn’t come back, had heard it everywhere from an abandoned spaceship to London in 2012.

She sighed and sat down on the captain’s bench, rubbing her arms distractedly. She wasn’t sure if she was somehow trying to soothe herself or if it was just cold. There was no use turning the TARDIS on and alerting the Family that something had changed before the Doctor managed to get into the ship through the ruse that he was still John Smith. But with the ship running on emergency power, the climate control wasn’t running, and it was as cold inside as it was outside.

Rose looked up and saw Latimer staring around the room in wonder, occasionally acquiring a sudden look of intense concentration, as if he were carrying on a conversation with the TARDIS. Considering what John had said when that bit of the Doctor had flashed through, about Tim being born with a low-level telepathic ability, Rose thought it was entirely possible that he _was_ having a conversation with the TARDIS. She smiled slightly and wondered what the old girl might be telling the boy.

Martha was pacing agitatedly around the console. She caught Rose looking at her and stopped. “We should have gone with him,” she said. “For backup.”

Rose shook her head. “It had to be this way. There’s no way we’d have gone with John if he’d decided to hand over the watch. Particularly not you,” she added, almost an afterthought. “If we’d gone with the Doctor, then the Family would have known something was up.” She flicked a glance at Latimer. “Besides, we couldn’t leave Tim alone, right?”

Martha nodded glumly. “I know you’re right, I do. I just…”

“Worry,” Rose finished for her. “Believe me, I know. You just have to tell yourself that he’ll come out of this one just as easily as all the others.”

“Sometimes that’s not saying much,” said Martha darkly, thinking of the Daleks and the Doctor daring them to exterminate him.

“It’s saying enough,” Rose replied firmly.

Latimer had been half-listening to the women, and looked over at Rose then, caught by the quiet confidence in her tone, so at odds with the tension in her body and mind. Then he remembered his vision of her and the Doctor by the blue box, smiling warmly at him.

“He’ll be back,” Latimer said. “Don’t worry.”

“That’s the spirit,” said Rose. She was oddly comforted by Latimer’s proclamation. Even Martha seemed less agitated. Then her pacing resumed and Rose could tell that something else was bothering her.

“Where do you think he’ll want to go after this?” Martha asked suddenly.

Rose tilted her head thoughtfully. “Somewhere not here, maybe. I mean, not on Earth – in any time.” She thought of all the times the Doctor had taken her to see her mum after a particularly difficult or emotionally wrenching adventure. “Or he might take you home.” At the stricken look on Martha’s face, Rose stifled what she knew would be an inappropriate laugh. “To _visit_ , Martha. Don’t you visit your family?”

Martha shook her head. “Not really. I did once,” she said, thinking of Lazarus. “But things got out of hand.”

“They generally do around the Doctor,” Rose admitted. “The first time he took me home to visit Mum and Mickey, we ended up in Downing Street trying to stop World War III.” She shook her head. “Then there was the Sycorax, and…” she trailed off, unable to say anything about the ghosts, or the Cybermen, or the Daleks.

Martha nodded glumly. “Your family… did they know?”

“About the Doctor?”

“Yes. I mean, not just that you were traveling with him, but about him being, you know…”

“An alien?” Rose finished. “Yes, they knew. Bit hard to keep it from them after the Slitheen in Downing Street.”

“My family doesn’t know,” Martha admitted. “Although I’m pretty sure my mum thinks that the Doctor is some sort of nefarious character who’s leading me down a path of iniquity or something.”

Rose laughed. “Sometimes I think Mum thought that even after she knew the truth.”

Martha laughed, but stopped abruptly when the TARDIS door opened and the Doctor stepped through, the Family in tow behind him. She recognized the look on his face from when they’d faced the Daleks and stepped back instinctually from the rage, even though it wasn’t directed at her.

Rose, in contrast, was mildly shocked by just how shut down the Doctor seemed to be to everything but his rage. Even when they’d dealt with the Cybermen and the Daleks, Rose didn’t know that she’d ever seen the Doctor so given over to fury, or so cold because of it. “Doctor…” she ventured. “What are you doing with them?”

“I’m giving them what they want.” His voice was low and menacing. For the first time since they met the lone Dalek in Van Statten’s lab, Rose felt fearful of the Doctor. “If it’s _so_ important to them that they live forever,” he continued coldly, “then that’s what they’ll get. But they’ll pay, ooh will they pay, for the harm they’ve done here.”

He looked to Mr. Clarke. “How would you like to spend eternity enchained at the bottom of a very deep hole?” 

He moved to Jenny. “Or be trapped forever in the event horizon of a collapsing galaxy? Fancy a permanent stay in a black hole?” 

Now the little girl. “And you, taking the guise of one so sweet and innocent. I’ll trap you in a mirror. No,” he interrupted himself. “ _Every_ mirror. You’ll always be there, looking out at the world going on without you.” 

And finally, Baines. “And you. The British schoolboy being trained for war, proud inventor of the scarecrow soldiers. You can stand guard over the fields of England forever, I think. As one of your own scarecrows.”

Rose shook her head in denial. This was not how the Doctor acted. He wouldn’t want this. Oh, he certainly wouldn’t let them go, wouldn’t let them get away with what they’d done. He’d ensure that they wouldn’t find some other way to survive, that his initial plan of waiting them out until they died naturally could come to pass. Because everything died, everything had its time.

She glanced over at Martha and was surprised that the other woman did not seem shocked or even mildly surprised by the Doctor’s proclamation of punishments. Had he changed so much since Rose had been trapped in the parallel world? She thought of the deep sadness that had been etched in his face at Bad Wolf Bay and her stomach sank. It was _her_ fault he was like this. She had let go, allowed him to lose her when she’d just promised to stay with him forever.

He may have found another companion, but he was still alone. And still angry. Rose swallowed the fear this new side of the Doctor engendered in her heart and moved to stand behind him. She put both her hands on his shoulders and raised herself on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear.

“Doctor, please.” He turned around, almost reluctantly, and she raised one hand to his cheek. “What’s happened to you?”

“They deserve it, Rose,” he said, the icy mask slipping as he looked almost pleadingly into her eyes. “It’s justice.”

“Not the kind you hand out,” she said calmly. “Not the kind you taught me to give.”

“They killed people, Rose. Without a thought, and they threatened _you_. And Martha,” he added. “And they brought destruction down on an innocent village, all to get to me. All because of their selfish desire to live forever.”

“Don’t let them make you someone you don’t want to be,” Rose replied. She brought her other hand to his face as well. “You’re the Doctor. Last of the Time Lords. Is this really the kind of justice you bring?”

Everyone seemed to freeze for a few moments, while the Doctor was locked in Rose’s pleading gaze. Then he crumpled into her arms, pulling her against him in a tight embrace. “You’re right,” he muttered into her hair. “You’re right, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“So then what _are_ you going to do with them, Doctor?” asked Martha.

The Doctor pulled away from Rose and began flipping switches on the console. The TARDIS came to life around them as he put her back on full power, now that the need to hide from the Family was gone. He rubbed a hand over his face and came to a stop in front of the console monitor. “A good question, Martha.” He took out his glasses and put them on, then pressed a few buttons and the symbols on the monitor flew by with a speed that confounded anyone but the Doctor.

“Ah,” he exclaimed suddenly, hitting a button and causing the monitor to freeze. He scanned the writing quickly and then looked up at the Family. “I’ve found just the place for you. Sit tight, we’ll be off in a moment.” He gestured to the others. “Martha, Rose, Latimer, if you would wait outside?” He began to follow them down the ramp and turned to the Family. “Be right back.”

“Well?” asked Martha after the Doctor shut the door behind them. “Where are you taking them?”

“To a planet that is about to die,” he said. “In approximately the exact same amount of time that it will take them to die, give or take a few days.” He ran a hand through his hair and took off his glasses, putting them back in his pocket. “I shouldn’t have any trouble coming up with a way to make it impossible for them to get off of the planet, or at least give them enough trouble trying to that they wouldn’t have enough time thanks to the planet’s imminent death.”

Rose nodded. “So they die in their time, as they’re supposed to.” She smiled tentatively. “Like Cassandra.”

“Well, I think it’s arguable that she outstayed her welcome even longer than this lot,” the Doctor said. “But I see your point.” He stepped forward and enfolded Rose in his embrace. “Thank you,” he said, his voice full of emotion. “Thank you for stopping me.”

“It’s my job,” Rose replied, pulling back and giving him a cheeky grin. “You’d be lost without me,” she said, an instant before realizing just how much she shouldn’t have said it. “I’m sorry,” she said immediately. “I didn’t mean…”

The Doctor cut her off by placing a finger on her lips. “You’re right, Rose. I was. But you’re back now, and until we have a chance to discuss… things…” He smiled gently. “Then that’s all that matters, right?”

Rose nodded. Heedless of Martha and Latimer standing next to them, the Doctor pressed a quick kiss to Rose’s lips before releasing her.

“All right,” he said, addressing all three of them. “I want you to wait here while I take care of that lot. I know what I’m doing, but it could still be dangerous. Go with Latimer back to the school and check to make sure every one there is all right. The Family may have gone there after the dance, and they may not have been peaceful about it. I should be back shortly.”

“Always wait five and half hours?” Rose asked with a smile.

“Yes. Just like I told you.” He winked at her. Then he leaned down so that he was on level with Latimer.

“You keep an eye on these ladies, right?” Latimer nodded solemnly. “Good man,” the Doctor said, clapping a hand on his shoulder. Then he hugged Martha and Rose in turn and got back in the TARDIS.

“Watch this,” Rose said to Latimer. “I think you’ll like it.”


	21. Chapter 20

Martha, Rose, and Timothy watched as the TARDIS dematerialized before their eyes, off to the brink of destruction. “You know,” Martha said. “He’s got a bleedin’ time machine. You’d think he could leave and come back moments apart.”

Rose laughed. “You’d think. But there’s timelines to be careful of, and the TARDIS has ideas of her own. Which is why you should always wait five and a half hours.” She turned and started out of the barn, leading Latimer with a hand at his shoulders. Martha trailed along behind them.

“Why five and a half hours?”

“Did he ever tell you about the time we found a spaceship with clockwork men who were opening portals to pre-revolutionary France?”

Martha gave a short laugh. “No, he didn’t. What happened?”

As they walked, Rose told them an abridged version of their encounter with Reinette and the clockwork men, repairing their ship with the parts of the crew.

“So after Mickey and I had been waiting for five and a half hours, the Doctor comes bounding in and gives me a hug.” They were almost to the school now, and the dawn was breaking around them. “Asks me how long we’d been waiting and then tells us that’s great, we should always wait exactly that long.”

Martha laughed. “That does sound like him,” she said. “Did he follow that up by saying you shouldn’t waste time on hugging?” It was obvious from the way she said it that she expected an affirmative response from Rose.

But Rose only looked at her oddly. “No. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who had a stronger inclination to pre-, mid-, and post-danger hugging.”

“Oh,” Martha said quietly. Guess that was something else that losing Rose had changed in the Doctor, she thought. It was almost always post-danger hugging with him these days. And even then he always seemed to be just doing it reflexively, his mind already on the next destination, the next adventure.

They walked on in silence, reaching the school a few minutes later. They were surprised to see the grounds of the school deserted. The bombardment of the village had been loud and bright enough to wake the dead; surely they would have noticed it at the school.

“They’re probably all gathered in the great hall,” Latimer said when Martha and Rose expressed their surprise. “After the bombardment stopped, they would have gathered there to assess the situation, I think.”

They slipped into the school undetected and first made their way to John’s quarters. Upon seeing the mess, Rose gasped. “My God, did they do all this?”

Martha shook her head. “I did some of it.” She glanced at Rose and Latimer. “Looking for the watch after I just missed you leaving for the dance.” She picked up a book lying near her feet. “But I didn’t leave it this bad, so they must have been here after I left.”

“Well, thank God they didn’t get here before you left,” Rose muttered. She looked around. “Do you know if there’s anything the Doctor would want from here? The journal’s back on the TARDIS, I think he’d want that, but is there anything else?”

Martha shook her head. “I don’t think so. Most of this was here before we got here. Apparently the teacher the Doctor replaced left in a hurry with-”

“The librarian,” Rose finished. “Which is why there were clothes of hers left for me to wear.” She brushed at the skirt of her dress. “Ooh, should have popped to my room for a change of clothes before we let the Doctor go off. We shouldn’t be here long enough to cause much trouble in twentieth century clothes.” She gave a sheepish smile. “Besides, that’s what I arrived here in, and I didn’t cause _too_ much of an uproar.”

“I think I want to burn this ridiculous maid uniform,” Martha admitted.

Rose laughed. “I can understand that.” She gave the room a final once-over. “Well, if you don’t think there’s anything here we need to rescue for the Doctor, then we should probably go check the library and my rooms, see if they’ve been there.”

“I went there earlier,” Latimer said. “I was in the library because the watch kept talking about you, Miss Rose, and I met Baines there, but then I scared him off before he could do anything.”

“How did you scare him off?” asked Martha.

“With the watch. I opened it and aimed it at him, and this big stream of golden light shot out at him.” Latimer gave a small shudder. “I saw what he was shown, and it certainly would have terrified me. The Oncoming Storm,” he murmured. “Fire and ice and rage.”

Rose put a comforting hand on Latimer’s shoulder. “But he’s not all bad, is he, Tim?”

“No, he’s wonderful. Terrifying,” he added. “But wonderful.”

“We should still go up to my rooms and get the clothes I was wearing when I arrived.” Rose began walking towards the door. “I was actually rather fond of that camisole. And those shoes.”

Martha and Latimer followed Rose out the door and the three of them made their way through the corridors to Rose’s rooms. As they passed a hallway leading to the Great Hall, they could hear the distant murmur of a large number of voices. It seemed that Latimer was right; the school was gathered together.

“I suppose we’ll have to think of some sort of story for them,” Rose muttered. “It’d be quite the scandal if the new teacher, the new librarian, two maids, and a student all disappeared at the same time. Especially after that scene in the village, which if they haven’t heard about yet, they will soon enough.”

“What could we possibly tell them?” Martha asked incredulously.

“I dunno,” Rose said. “We should get the Doctor to do it as John Smith. He could complain about what happened last night and the state of his rooms. We could mess up the library a bit for good measure and he could whisk us away to safety somewhere else.”

“That doesn’t explain Jenny and Baines and the others.”

“Well, we can’t explain everything.”

They reached Rose’s rooms and found them undisturbed. She quickly gathered her clothes and stuffed them in a pillowcase to make them easier to carry. On an impulse, she grabbed the flower John had brought her the night before and carried it out as well.

Rose’s possessions retrieved, the three of them made their way quietly back out onto the grounds, avoiding the Great Hall in the hopes of not meeting anyone. By the time they made it outside, the TARDIS was materializing out near the sandbag bunkers. The Doctor opened the door and waited in the doorway, dressed now in his own pinstriped suit and long coat.

“Is it done?” Rose asked as she passed by him on her way into the TARDIS.

“It’s done,” he said. “They wailed a bit about mercy, but I asked them if they didn’t think they’d already gotten enough thanks to you, and they quieted down.” He shut the door after Martha and Latimer had both come inside. “Then I came back here briefly, and went back to the planet a few weeks after I dropped them off. Made sure they were still there when she went.” He sighed. “They were. We’re safe.”

“Good,” Rose said quietly. “Everyone at the school is gathered in the Great Hall. We managed to avoid seeing anyone, but I really think you – or rather, John Smith – should go tell them _something_.”

“I don’t do that,” the Doctor said immediately.

“Oh, come off it,” Rose replied impatiently, dropping her pillowcase of clothes on the floor. “Where has that attitude gotten you before, hmm? Remember the Game Station? It’s gotten you _killed_ , that’s where it’s gotten you.” Martha gave Rose an odd look. The Doctor was clearly alive, thus he couldn’t have gotten himself killed. Right?

The Doctor held up his hands. “Fine, fine, Rose. I’ll tell them some villagers went crazy, I can’t possibly stay here, and I’m taking my maid and the librarian with me.” He glanced down at Latimer. “You’ll be safe here now, but if you don’t want to stay, you’re welcome to come along.”

Latimer looked around the console room and listened to the comforting hum of the TARDIS’ thoughts tickling the edge of his mind. Then he thought of the vision he’d had of himself and Hutchinson on the battlefield. He shook his head. “There are things coming – mud and wire and fire. The biggest war ever. I’m supposed to be there.”

“You don’t have to fight,” Martha said.

“I think I do.”

“You could get hurt,” she insisted.

“So could you or Miss Rose, traveling around with him. But it doesn’t stop you, does it?”

Martha fell silent. The boy had a point. Martha wasn’t going to stop traveling with the Doctor because it was dangerous. Though she might for other reasons, she thought, glancing at Rose surreptitiously.

The Doctor nodded. “I said you were a good man, and I was right.” As he led the boy out of the TARDIS and back onto the school grounds, Rose and Martha following behind, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the fob watch. He held it out to the boy. “Tim, I’d be honored if you’d take this.”

Latimer reached out and took the watch from the Doctor. He smiled as he took it, then looked up at the Doctor in confusion. “I can’t hear anything.”

“No,” the Doctor explained. “It’s just a watch now. But keep it with you.” He smiled. “For good luck.”

Latimer nodded. “I will. Thank you.” Rose reached out to hug him, and then the Doctor shook his hand. Latimer smiled, remembering the vision he’d had earlier. He was never wrong.

“Right!” the Doctor exclaimed, as if the moment had grown too serious for him. “Back to the school, say our goodbyes.” He glanced at Rose meaningfully. “Do a little cleanup for once.”

She smiled. “It’s practically domestic.”

“I shudder to think it,” replied the Doctor.

They walked the short distance back to the school building and made their way into the Great Hall. The headmaster descended on them in an instant demanding an explanation. The Doctor rambled about for a minute or two, sounding more like himself than John Smith for all that Rose had told him to act like John. Soon enough, they were leaving Latimer in the care of his teachers and the school once again without a history teacher or a librarian – and short two maids.

\-----

When they reached the TARDIS, the Doctor unlocked the door and then gallantly held it open for Martha and Rose. He’d no sooner shut the door behind him than he was bouncing up to the console and throwing switches and pressing buttons.

“Where are we going?” Martha asked.

The Doctor looked over at her. There had been something odd in her tone, he thought. Like panic, or worry. But her face was a study in inquisitiveness, so he let it pass. “At the moment,” he said, stepping back from the console in satisfaction, “nowhere in particular.” He reached forward and pressed a final button, and the TARDIS gave a gentle shudder, indicating that they were dematerializing and entering the Time Vortex. “We’re going to float for a bit.” He reached up and patted the time rotor column. “Don’t go bumping into things or falling into regular space, now.”

He turned his attention back to Rose and Martha. “I’m just guessing based on my own feelings on the matter,” he began, thinking with a delicate shudder of John Smith’s snug bow tie, “but I thought you ladies might like a chance to do domestic things like shower and change your clothes.”

“You’re fantastic,” Rose said, heading immediately towards the hallway. She grinned at the Doctor over her shoulder as she passed him. “Not that I have to tell you that for you to know it.”

The Doctor grinned after her. As Rose passed out of sight, he turned to Martha, who was also heading towards the hallway. “Martha, hold on a tick,” he said, catching her elbow as she passed.

She stopped and looked up at him. “Yeah, Doctor?”

“I just wanted to say…” he dropped her elbow but smiled warmly. “Thank you. For looking after me.” He glanced in the direction Rose had left and then looked back at Martha. “And for letting Rose spend time with John. It made it… easier for him. To let go,” he elaborated when Martha raised her eyebrow questioningly. “To open the watch and let me come back.”

“I would have thought it made it harder.”

“Well, in some ways, yes. But in the end…” The Doctor trailed off and his gaze wandered to the hallway again, staying there this time as he continued. “He knew she would remember him, and remember him well. There’s honor in sacrificing yourself for a cause, but it feels empty unless you know that you’re making someone proud.”

Martha nodded. “I understand.” She began moving toward the hallway again, but the Doctor called out softly and stopped her again.

“Martha.” She turned around to look at him. “I mean it,” he said, sensing that she was sad about something. “I could never have done this without you. I know this wasn’t the most pleasant adventure for you.”

Martha realized with a start that the Doctor apparently had a very good memory of the things that had happened whilst he was John Smith, most likely up to and including her admission of loving him to bits. Her eyes widened and she shifted her weight nervously. “Listen, last night in here with John, when I said…” she gestured with her hand and the Doctor nodded his understanding. “I would have said, well, _anything_ really to try to convince him to change, you know?”

The Doctor stuck his hands in his pockets and nodded quickly. “Oh, yes, yes… obviously, I understand.”

“Right,” Martha said. “Good.” She stood there awkwardly for another moment and then clasped her hands together. “Okay, then. I am going to my room to get that shower and clothes change. You…” she waved vaguely in the direction of the console. “Keep busy,” she finished lamely. She beat a hasty retreat to her room before the Doctor could reply.


	22. Chapter 21

In her own room, Rose had found that little had changed since that fateful day she and the Doctor had traced the “ghosts” back to Torchwood One. She’d gratefully caught sight of her duffel bag at the foot of her bed and sent up a silent prayer of thanks that her mum had finished the laundry and brought it back before the Doctor had played Ghostbusters.

In the bath, she found her shampoo, conditioner, and body wash exactly where she’d left them. Her big fluffy towel was still hanging on the towel rod. She opened the cabinet behind the mirror and found her makeup and hair products all still there – my God, had she really carted around all that eyeliner? Shaking her head, she stripped down and stepped into the shower, turning the water on full blast, as hot as she could stand it.

Twenty minutes later, she wrapped the towel around her hair and padded out into her room to rummage through her duffel in search of clothes. She was surprised to find the bag empty. She knew she hadn’t unpacked it – there hadn’t been time. She crossed to her dresser and found her things neatly folded inside. It was also then that she realized that for the room to be as unchanged as it was, the Doctor had to have come in regularly and fought back the dust and cobwebs.

“Oh, Doctor,” she murmured, feeling a stab of pain in the vicinity of her heart. “I’m so sorry.”

She pulled out underwear, jeans, and a tank top at random and pulled them on before heading back to the bathroom to see to her hair and makeup. She piled her hair on top of her head in a messy French twist and put on a bare minimum of makeup. “No more raccoon eyes,” she said aloud, long past feeling silly for talking to the ship. “I’m a professional woman now. ‘Course, without all that eyeliner, maybe you won’t recognize me.”

The TARDIS’ faint hum of response sounded to Rose like it was either amused or affectionate, possibly both. She was nowhere near able to communicate with the ship like the Doctor could, and was out of practice interpreting the hums and vibrations anyway. But, she thought as she ran a hand down the doorframe between her room and her bathroom, it felt damn good to be home.

Hair and makeup finished, she went back to the dresser and began rummaging in the drawers, looking for her favorite jumper. It had been one of the _things_ she’d missed most while in Pete’s World – though obviously nowhere near as much as she’d missed the Doctor or the TARDIS. She was just starting to get frustrated at her inability to locate it when a knock sounded on her door.

She got up to open it and found the Doctor waiting on the other side.

“Oh,” she said, focused on his face. “I was wondering, have you seen-”

“Your favorite jumper?” he interrupted, holding up the article of clothing in question. Rose lifted an eyebrow as she took the jumper from him and pulled it on. “I sort of borrowed it.”

“You didn’t _wear_ it,” Rose exclaimed.

“No, no, no,” he said quickly. “Just… it smelled like you.”

“Oh.” Rose’s voice was soft. She wasn’t used to the Doctor admitting to something so vulnerable as smelling the clothes of a lost loved one. She picked at a nonexistent piece of lint on the cuff of the jumper. “I used to wish – while I was on Pete’s World, I mean – I would wish I had something of yours.” She reached up and pulled her TARDIS key on its chain out from under her clothes. “I had this, but it doesn’t smell like anything.”

The Doctor reached out and ran a fingertip over the key where it rested against Rose’s chest. She hardly dared to breathe, and the look in his eyes stole whatever breath she might have drawn in. “You kept it,” he murmured. “You still wear it.”

“I did,” she whispered. “I do.”

He leaned down slowly and kissed her tenderly. She pressed her hands against his chest and then curled her fingers around the lapels of his pinstriped suit. Eventually, the kiss ended and the Doctor rested his forehead against Rose’s. “I missed you,” he said.

“Missed you, too.”

“Don’t leave again.” It was probably as close to pleading as the Doctor would ever get.

“I won’t.”

Then he pulled her against him and she buried her face in the curve of his neck, his chin resting on top of her head. His arms were wrapped around her shoulders and hers encircled his waist. They stayed that way for endless minutes, just holding each other because she was _back_ , and they _could_.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered against his skin.

“It wasn’t your fault.” His words were muffled by her hair, but she understood them just the same, including the part he didn’t say out loud.

“Wasn’t your fault, either.”

\-----

Elsewhere in the TARDIS, Martha had finished her shower and put on some of her own clothes. She set the maid’s uniform aside – she still hadn’t decided if she’d been kidding when she’d told Rose she wanted to burn the thing. She pulled on her boots and ventured out into the corridor, heading for the console room, hoping that the Doctor would be there.

But of course, when she arrived there, she was only greeted by the gentle thrumming of the TARDIS as it floated through the Vortex. Martha tried not to dwell on the fact that it was very likely that the Doctor was not in the console room because he’d sought out Rose. She knew they had a lot of things to talk about, those two, but she wished she didn’t have such a vivid idea of exactly how they might go about having that conversation or just exactly what sort of _talking_ they might end up doing.

The Doctor hadn’t given any indication that he was planning on kicking Martha out now that Rose was back. In fact, Martha mused with some amusement, he’d been surprisingly gleeful about the two of them meeting. He’d even insisted on formally introducing them despite the fact that they’d done well enough in that regard whilst he’d been busy being human. But she suspected it was more due to his joy at having Rose back and introducing Rose to Martha than the other way around.

Of course, she thought, perhaps the Doctor had some sort of “the more the merrier” philosophy when it came to traveling in the TARDIS that was keeping him from seeing the awkwardness with which Martha approached the idea of living with the Doctor and Rose together. Rose had spoken about her friend Mickey traveling with them, perhaps there had been others as well. She seemed to recall the Doctor having vaguely referred to “they” or “them” when telling stories about adventures he’d had with Rose, which certainly implied that she had not been alone.

Martha sat down on the captain’s bench with a sigh. The Doctor might have been perfectly content to let his reunion with Rose play out in front of a captive audience. But the more Martha thought about it, the more she worked out the situation in her head, the more she began to believe that it was time for her stay on the TARDIS to come to an end. She wasn’t sure if she would be cutting her losses or getting out whilst she was still ahead, but whichever cliché fit better, she decided, it was time.

No sooner had Martha come to that conclusion than the Doctor and Rose came into the console room laughing merrily about something. They were holding hands, their fingers threaded together rather than a simple clasping of palms. Rose’s free hand was lightly holding on to the Doctor’s elbow as well, as if the single connection of their joined hands wasn’t quite enough.

Martha swallowed back the lump that rose in her throat. Never in all the months that she’d been traveling with the Doctor had she seen him looking so _happy_. Never had she imagined that he would allow someone to cling to him like Rose was. He was, after all, the man who’d exclaimed that they shouldn’t waste time hugging in the middle of a crisis. Given what Rose had said earlier about the Doctor being rather inclined to hugging, Martha doubted he had ever said such a thing to Rose.

“Martha!” the Doctor exclaimed happily. “I was just telling Rose, if you’ve any preferences as to where our next adventure should be, you’re just gonna have to wait, because I have somewhere I want to go!”

He dropped Rose’s hand and began his usual destination-setting routine of running wildly around the console pulling levers and pushing buttons. Rose watched him happily, her expression the picture of amused affection.

“Where are we going?” Martha asked, curious. The Doctor usually made suggestions or asked if she’d like to be surprised.

“Farringham, England. November the 11th, in the year of our Lord two thousand and seven,” he said, a tinge of pride coloring his tone.

“We’re going back to that town?” Martha asked incredulously. “ _Why_?”

The Doctor returned to Rose’s side and the two of them leaned back against the railing, the Doctor slinging his arm over Rose’s shoulders absently. “There’s someone I’d like to see. And I think you would as well, right Rose?”

“Definitely.” She grinned broadly and poked the Doctor’s chest. “But remember, we’ve got to down the shops first to pick up the poppies, yeah?”

“Poppies?”

“Remembrance Day, Martha.” The Doctor smiled, clearly proud of himself for coming up with the idea. “We’re seeing Tim.”

Later, Martha had to give the Doctor credit – it had been lovely to see Tim, even if it had been just a glimpse, a wave and a smile across the village green. Though, she thought petulantly, she’d have done well without the scene in the shop when the Doctor and Rose had solicitously pinned on each others’ poppies, complete with giggles and mock howls of pain. Martha had pinned hers on with a sigh and shared a slightly exasperated look with the clerk, a young woman who seemed to greet their cuteness with eyes even more cynical than Martha’s.

On the way back to the TARDIS, Martha tried to decide whether she wanted to ask to speak to the Doctor alone, or if she would rather just get it all out even if Rose witnessed the fact that Martha’s explanation for why she had to leave had a lot to do with Rose’s return. She thought that the Doctor might tell Rose anyway – sort of like how married couples could tell each other everything even when they’d been sworn to secrecy, like they were exempt from any of that stuff. Besides, if she did explain it to the Doctor when Rose was absent, she’d still have to come up with another explanation to give Rose.

The Doctor set the TARDIS back to drifting in the Vortex as soon as they were back inside. “Tea!” he exclaimed as he pressed the last button. “Rose Tyler, I haven’t had your tea in… well, a while anyway,” he muttered, steering away from the precarious subject of her absence. “So, I’d like some, if you would be so kind.”

“I’d love some tea,” she said. The Doctor offered her his elbow and she took it, looking back over her shoulder at Martha. “Come on to the kitchen, Martha. I make a mean cuppa.”

“Best tea in this quadrant of the universe,” the Doctor affirmed.

Martha shook her head as she followed the two of them down the hallway. Was there _anything_ Rose Tyler couldn’t do? Apparently even supposedly-impossible travel across the Void from a parallel world wasn’t beyond her capabilities, so why shouldn’t she make the best cup of tea in however many galaxies?

Martha shook her head again, reminding herself that she didn’t want to be bitter about this. At least, not much. When she was honest with herself, she knew that she would have come to the point of leaving the TARDIS soon enough with or without Rose’s miraculous return. It had only acted as a catalyst, letting Martha realize some things she would have taken longer to see without the push.

On their way to the kitchen they passed the med bay, and the Doctor tugged Rose inside for a quick fix on the cut on her hand. It was already healing far better than Rose expected, but a few seconds’ use of one of the Doctor’s gadgets left it good as new, and Rose tossed away the band-aids she’d put on it after her shower with relief.


	23. Chapter 22

Once the three of them were settled at the kitchen table, steaming cups of tea in their hands, the Doctor began rambling at Rose and Martha about possible destinations.

“There’s a burst of star fire we could get to a few months ahead of ourselves,” he said excitedly, his eyes lighting up. “The sky is like… oil on water! Beautiful!” He took a sip of tea, grinned. “Or, back in time! We could… I don’t know…”

“Charles the Second,” Rose said, naming the first monarch to come into her head.

“Or Henry the Eighth,” the Doctor replied. “Oh, I know!” he exclaimed, practically interrupting himself. “What about Agatha Christie? I’d _love_ to meet Agatha Christie!” He looked over at Martha. “Bet she’s brilliant…” he trailed off, the wide smile falling immediately off his face when he caught the look on Martha’s.

“Okay,” he said sadly. Rose, who had been focused on the Doctor, turned to look at Martha as well. Though Rose couldn’t imagine leaving the TARDIS voluntarily, she imagined that if she were to do so, she might tell the Doctor with the same sad smile on her face.

“I just… can’t,” Martha said.

Rose reached out and hesitantly touched Martha’s hand where it was wrapped around her teacup. “Please don’t leave on my account,” she said softly. “I know it’s sort of awkward, but I don’t…”

“It’s not just ‘cause you’re back,” Martha said, “though yes, that sped up my realizations.” She took a deep breath.

“I’ve spent a lot of time with you feeling like I was second best,” Martha said, looking at the Doctor. “And I realized that’s not healthy.”

The Doctor resisted the urge to glance at Rose. “I didn’t mean to make you feel that way.”

Martha shook her head. “I know you didn’t. But there were things broken in you that I just couldn’t fix.” She glanced at Rose quickly, and then returned her gaze to the Doctor. “I don’t think anyone could but her.”

The Doctor nodded solemnly. Under the table, where Martha couldn’t see, Rose reached over and put her hand on the Doctor’s knee in a silent gesture of comfort and apology.

“And see,” Martha continued, “the thing is, it’s like my friend Vicki. She lived with this bloke, student housing, there were five of them all packed in, and this bloke was called Shawn. And she loved him.” Martha set her teacup down with a slight rattle, unconsciously emphasizing her speech. “She did, she _completely_ adored him, spent all day long talking about him.”

“Is this… going somewhere?” the Doctor asked in confusion. Under the table, Rose swatted his knee reprovingly.

“Yes!” Martha insisted.

“Oh, right, carry on,” he muttered, leaning back against his chair and crossing his arms. It never occurred to him that as someone with a rather pronounced tendency to ramble himself, he had a lamentable lack of patience for the same trait in others.

“’Cause he never looked at her twice,” Martha said, shaking her head slightly. The Doctor looked down at his lap, suddenly seeing just where this was going. “I mean, he liked her,” Martha continued. “But that was it. And she wasted _years_ pining after him, years of her life, ‘cause while he was around,” she gestured vaguely with her hand, “she never looked at anyone else.”

Martha shook her head. “And I told her, I always said to her, time and time again I said, ‘Get. Out.’” She sighed and tipped her teacup a little towards her, set it back upright again. She looked back up at the Doctor, met his eyes bravely.

“So this is me,” she said, her voice stronger than she’d thought it would be when the time came. “Getting out.”

The Doctor felt a rush of guilt now that he’d been forced to confront the fact that Martha had had feelings for him and he’d ignored them. He’d been far too wrapped up in his own pain and his own loneliness to acknowledge what was happening, let alone take the time to make an attempt to set things right. He supposed Rose would tell him that he couldn’t have changed the way Martha felt about him no matter what he’d done, but on balance it was beginning to look like perhaps he should have tried to find a different way to effect a genetic transfer on that first day he’d met Martha.

Suddenly Martha smiled and reached into her pocket. She slid her superphone across the table and the Doctor caught it nimbly. “Keep that,” she said, injecting her tone with as much brightness as she could muster. “I’m not having you disappear. If that rings – _when_ that rings,” she glanced over at Rose, including her in the order, “you better come running.”

“Got it,” Rose said. She held out her hand, palm up, obviously wanting the Doctor to give her the phone. “Give it here,” she said mildly. “You lose things.”

“What?” the Doctor exclaimed. “I do not!”

Rose laughed. “Those great big pockets of yours, are you kidding? What about that time you almost built yourself a new sonic screwdriver because you couldn’t find yours for days?” She looked over at Martha. “It was in his coat. Those pockets are like the TARDIS, you know. Bigger on the inside. You never know what he’s got stored up in there.”

“I don’t lose things,” the Doctor muttered grumpily. But he handed the phone over to Rose, who tucked it into her pocket smugly. Martha chuckled in spite of herself.

“Well,” the Doctor said after a moment. “I suppose it’s back to 2007, then. London instead of Farringham, of course.”

“Yes,” Rose said pointedly. “Wouldn’t want to make the same mistake with Martha that you made with Sarah Jane.”

“Oh, now, come on. You never did hear the context, there were extenuating circumstances-”

“Wait, who was Sarah Jane?” Martha asked, intrigued. Had she been someone who had traveled with the Doctor and Rose before Rose had been trapped in the parallel world?

“She was someone I traveled with a very long time ago who Rose and I ran into once.”

Rose gave a self-deprecating laugh. “She and I didn’t get off on the best foot at first, but then we bonded over making fun of the Doctor.”

“And what was his mistake?”

“Well, Sarah Jane was from Croydon, yeah? Except when the Doctor dropped her off for good, he got it wrong. Left her in Aberdeen instead!”

“You didn’t!” Martha said, turning to the Doctor.

“Look, I said there were extenuating circumstances, didn’t I? I was distracted! And she appears in the console room, all packed, announcing she can’t take it any more and she’s leaving…” He leaned forward earnestly. “I’d been called home, right? Because of an emergency. And humans weren’t allowed there then, so she couldn’t come anyway, but I needed to hurry, so maybe I got the coordinates a bit wrong.”

Rose stifled a sound that was suspiciously like a snort, and the Doctor glared at her. “Well it doesn’t matter, because I got awfully good at hitting turn-of-the-21st-century London, what with all the times we visited your mum.”

“Don’t sound so annoyed about it, I only ever suggested the laundry visits. Well, mostly,” she amended at the Doctor’s raised eyebrow.

“The _point_ ,” the Doctor said firmly, “is that I am not going to drop Martha in Scotland instead of London.”

“Good,” Martha said with a laugh. “Because I’m pretty sure I left all my forms of payment in my flat, and I’d hate to have to hitchhike that far.”

The Doctor drained the last of tea and stood. “I’ll go set the coordinates, then. If you’re sure you don’t want one adventure for the road?” His tone was ever-so-slightly hopeful, though he already knew the answer before Martha shook her head.

“No. Home for me.” She smiled a little. “It’s for the best.”

The Doctor nodded and strode out of the kitchen wordlessly. Martha watched him go with a small sigh. She turned back and found Rose looking at her sympathetically.

“It’s worth it, though, isn’t it?” she said quietly. “Even when it hurts, it’s worth it.”

Martha nodded slowly. “Yeah. It is.” She got to her feet, and Rose followed suit. “I suppose I should go get my things together.”

“I can help, if you want,” Rose offered.

“S’alright,” Martha said, shaking her head. “I don’t have anything like as much stuff on board as you do.” The smile she gave Rose was tinged with sadness. “You lived here, this was – _is_ your home. I think somehow I always knew I was just visiting.”

Rose smiled back, and Martha wandered out into the hallway and headed off toward her room to pack her single small duffel bag of clothes and toiletries. Rose stayed in the kitchen, busying herself with the soothingly domestic task of clearing the table and rinsing the teacups.

She knew the Doctor would shudder at the thought of anything domestic being soothing – or at least at admitting that it might be. But although Rose thoroughly enjoyed the adventuresome life she had lived – and would now live again – with the Doctor and, to a lesser degree, at Torchwood, she found it could get a little _too_ hectic without the occasional quiet task like rinsing teacups.

Of course, that didn’t mean she wasn’t wildly grateful that the TARDIS took care of a lot of cleaning-related tasks. Like bathrooms – Rose definitely did not count cleaning the bathroom on the list of soothingly domestic chores. Laundry wasn’t her favorite thing to do either – hence always having her mum do it before… well, before. She supposed she would have to do it herself now.

“Do you have a laundry room?” she asked the TARDIS. There was a faint hum of response that felt positive to Rose. She assumed it meant yes, and made a mental note to ask the Doctor about it some time before she got down to her last pair of clean underwear.

She put the final teacup back in the cupboard and took one last fond look around the kitchen. It was _definitely_ good to be home.

\-----

By the time Rose got to the console room, Martha had already gotten there with her packed duffel. 

“You weren’t joking,” Rose observed.

Martha shook her head. “No, I wasn’t.” She laid a hand on the TARDIS console. “So,” she said to the Doctor, “are we all set?”

The Doctor nodded. “Say the word, and we’ll be in your flat.” He glanced at Rose. “If I’ve calculated right, it should only be a day or two after the last time we were there.”

Rose snorted. “Yeah, and twelve hours is almost exactly the same as twelve months.”

“Oi!” the Doctor exclaimed. “I was a whole different man then. And didn’t I get it precisely right the first time I took you somewhere like this? And under such stressful circumstances, too!”

Rose smiled, and her tongue poked out from between her teeth in the way that told the Doctor he was in for it. “Right, but 1879 is even less like 1979 than twelve months is like twelve years.”

Martha shook her head in baffled amusement. The Doctor and Rose were quite a pair. If things weren’t so complicated, she thought, it might be fun to travel with them. But she knew she was right to leave, so she cleared her throat discreetly, gaining their attention. “I’m ready, Doctor.”

“Right, right, sorry. Everybody ready?” He glanced at Rose and Martha, who both nodded. “Here we go!”

He pushed a button, and the TARDIS jerked sharply, her three occupants stumbling against the railing but not falling over. Another few seconds, and it was over. The Doctor walked to the door and opened it, revealing Martha’s flat. “See?” he said, looking at Rose pointedly. “Got it right. Told you I would.”

Rose smiled at him indulgently. “It has to happen sometimes,” she said impishly. Then she turned to Martha and opened her arms, offering a hug. After a slight hesitation, Martha accepted the gesture.

“Thank you,” Rose whispered in Martha’s ear. “Thank you for taking care of him when I couldn’t.”

“You’re welcome,” Martha whispered back. The two women pulled apart, and Rose smiled broadly.

“It was lovely to meet you, Martha Jones.” She patted her pocket. “Don’t forget, if you need us, we’re only a phone call away.”

Martha nodded. “It was nice to meet you, too,” she said, proud of herself for not even choking on the words. “And I won’t forget.”

She turned to the Doctor, who opened his arms to her much like Rose had. This time Martha accepted the hug without hesitation. “Take care of yourself,” she told him sternly, though she thought with Rose around, perhaps he wouldn’t need to quite as much.

“And you,” he said as they stepped back from each other.

“It’s been… quite an experience,” Martha said seriously. Then she smiled. “Wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

The Doctor grinned back. “Have a fantastic life, Martha Jones.”

“Oh, I intend to,” she replied.

She turned her back on the Doctor and Rose, straightened her shoulders, and walked purposefully out the door, closing it behind her. Once she’d gotten a few feet away, she turned around and watched the TARDIS fade out of her flat and her life, and told herself not to cry.

\-----

Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor and Rose sat down on the captain’s bench. The Doctor put his arm around Rose’s shoulders and she cuddled against him, resting her head against his bony shoulder. It was a lot more comfortable than one might think, though Rose acknowledge that it might be due to the fact that he was the Doctor and she was Rose, and she would always feel better when she was close to him.

They sat there in silence for a few minutes, simply enjoying the fact that they were together. The gentle whirr of the time rotor as they drifted through the vortex mingled with the sounds of their breathing and the rhythm of three heartbeats. Rose felt utterly content.

Then she gave a huge yawn, effectively breaking the moment. The Doctor chuckled and squeezed Rose’s shoulders.

“I was going to ask where you wanted to go, but I think that tells me the answer. You humans and your need for sleep. It’s only been, what, twenty-four hours?”

Rose frowned at him. “I can’t help it. Besides, I’ll only need a few hours, you won’t be alone long.” She got to her feet and shuffled into the hallway and to her room. A few minutes later, the Doctor got up and followed her.

When he reached her door, he knocked quietly. He heard Rose’s voice through the door telling him to come in, and opened it slowly.

“I was thinking,” he said, suddenly sounding oddly unsure of himself. Rose was already tucked into her bed. She propped herself up on her elbows and watched the Doctor carefully.

“That’s usually dangerous,” she said.

“Ha, ha.” He took a tentative step into the room. “I was thinking, maybe a nap couldn’t hurt.”

“Oh?” Rose said, not sure she could believe what she thought the Doctor was asking.

“I mean, I know you need some sleep, I’m not saying…” To Rose’s astonishment, it looked like there was actually a faint blush staining the Doctor’s cheeks. “I just… you’re here, and I…”

Wordlessly, Rose took hold of a corner of her blankets and pulled them back. The Doctor smiled and came all the way into the room, closing the door behind him. He slipped off his shoes and took off his suit jacket, which he hung on the doorknob so it wouldn’t get wrinkled. Then he crossed to the bed and slid in under the covers.

Rose wriggled closer and the Doctor pulled her into his arms. She settled against him, already slipping into dreams.

“How long are you gonna stay with me?” the Doctor whispered.

Rose smiled. “Forever,” she murmured.


	24. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a non-spoilery reference to the tie-in novel "The Resurrection Casket."

The Doctor and Rose sat in the back of a London taxicab, looking around anxiously.

“Doctor,” Rose said urgently. “I think this it, we’ll have to run from here.”

The Doctor nodded. “You’re right.” He leaned forward and addressed the cabbie. “Sorry, mate, stop the cab; we’re gonna have to run. Literally. Thanks for your time,” he added, tossing a tenner on the front passenger seat, which more than covered the time they built up on the meter. “Keep the change!”

He and Rose piled quickly out of the cab. They took off running, but the Doctor stopped abruptly when he heard someone calling him.

“Doctor! Doctor!”

He spun around and searched for the source of the voice.

“Doctor!” it shouted again, and he saw that it was coming from a young woman outside a DVD store. He stepped towards her.

“Hello!” he said, sounding cheerful, if harried. “Sorry, bit of a rush, there’s a sort of _thing_ happening, fairly important we stop it.”

“My God,” the woman said. “It’s you, it _really_ is you.” She took in the Doctor’s confused look and shook her head. “Oh, you don’t remember me, do you?”

By now, Rose had noticed that the Doctor was no longer following her and retraced her steps. She jogged up to him, calling out as she approached. “Doctor! The migration’s started.” She stopped at his side and tugged on his coat sleeve.

The Doctor glanced down at her and then looked back at the girl who’d stopped him. “Look, sorry, I’ve got a bit of a complex life. Things don’t always happen to me in order. Gets confusing. Especially at weddings,” he mused aloud. “I’m rubbish at weddings. Especially my own,” he added, winking at Rose. She rolled her eyes with affectionate exasperation.

“Oh, God,” the woman said, watching them. “Of course! You’re a time traveler. It hasn’t happened yet… none of it! It’s still in your future!”

“What hasn’t happened?” the Doctor asked, intrigued enough now to be distracted from the imminent end of the world.

“Er, twenty minutes to red hatching,” Rose murmured, though she was intrigued as well.

“It was me!” the girl exclaimed, smiling and laughing. “Oh, for God’s sake, it was me all along. You got it all from me!”

“Got what?” the Doctor asked.

“Okay, listen,” she said, leaning forward. The Doctor leaned closer as well. “One day, you’re going to get stuck in 1969.”

The Doctor threw a glance over his shoulder at Rose and shrugged. Not all bad, 1969. Martha’d been so fond of the moon landing that they’d gone four times.

“Make sure you’ve got this with you,” the girl continued, holding out a purple plastic folder stuffed with papers. “You’re gonna need it.”

The Doctor took it and began to open it and peek inside. Intrigued as she was, Rose felt now would be a good time to remind the Doctor of a more pressing issue than a future problem to which they had apparently just been handed the solution. “Doctor!”

The Doctor looked down at Rose and motioned for her to go on. Confident that he would in fact follow her, she raced off.

“Yeah, listen, listen,” he said to the girl. “Got to dash… things happening. Well, four things. Well, four things and a lizard.”

“Okay,” she replied, shrugging and giving him an understanding smile. “No worries, on you go. See you around some day.”

The Doctor moved to follow Rose, then stopped and looked back at the girl. “What was your name?”

“Sally Sparrow,” she replied.

“Good to meet you, Sally Sparrow.”

Just then, a young and scruffy-looking man came up beside Sally, staring at the Doctor as if dumbstruck. Sally looked at him appraisingly and then resolutely took his hand in hers.

“Goodbye, Doctor,” she said. Then she wrapped her arm around the man’s waist and the two of them turned into the DVD shop.

The Doctor smiled in amusement. Then he raced off to save the world.

\-----

A few hours later, the world was safe and the Doctor and Rose were ensconced in plush armchairs in the TARDIS library with steaming cups of tea sitting on an end table next to the purple folder Sally Sparrow had given the Doctor. He picked it up and opened it, pulling out the sheath of papers it contained.

“Right then, let’s see about 1969, eh?”

They leafed through the papers curiously.

“Who only owns seventeen DVDs?” Rose muttered incredulously.

The Doctor grinned at the photos of the writing on the wall. “Ooh, petty vandalism. I like it.”

They read the transcript of the “conversation” the Doctor was to have with Sally.

“Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey?” Rose asked mildly.

“Can you explain it better?”

“Point taken,” Rose admitted. “Meanwhile, do you think we’ll have to get a mortgage?” The Doctor shuddered, and Rose giggled slightly. “At the very least, we’ll stay somewhere with carpets and doors.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, shall we?” The Doctor set the transcript aside and rifled through the remaining photographs. Suddenly, Rose let out a shocked gasp. “What?” the Doctor asked, concerned. “What is it?”

She pointed to a picture of a weeping angel statue. “I should have guessed it from the transcript – the weeping angels.” She looked up from the picture and met the Doctor’s concerned gaze. “That’s the last thing I remember in Pete’s World. I was in the park having lunch, and I noticed a new statue.” She set the picture down in disbelief. “I got up to get a closer look, and the next thing I knew, I was in this universe in 1913.”

The Doctor blinked once, then grabbed Rose’s cheeks and planted a smacking kiss on her lips. “That’s brilliant! You got touched by an angel who sent you back to 1913, which to our great and wonderful advantage just _happens_ to be _before_ the universes split.”

“You think so?” Rose asked in wonder. “It’s so simple.”

“It has to be, there’s no other way to explain it,” the Doctor said, rambling now in the way that told Rose he was thinking out loud more than actually speaking to anyone. He jumped to his feet and began pacing in circles around the chairs and table. “Travel between parallel universes isn’t possible any more, not with Gallifrey gone, but time travel, obviously that’s still on. And the weeping angels, it’s not even complex, just back you go and Bob’s your uncle. Ooh, Uncle Bobb,” he said, distracted momentarily. “Been ages since we met Uncle Bobb. Wonder how he and Jimm are getting along. If it wasn’t for the ZEG and the trouble it causes, we could go visit.”

Rose shook her head in amusement. Oh, how her Doctor could go on.

“Anyway, Bob’s your uncle and you’re back in time wherever the angel that gets you is keyed to send you. Yours sends you back to 1913, pre-universe splitting, and now here you are with me!”

“But I came from the parallel universe. When the split _does_ happen, will it know that I belong in the parallel time stream and not this one?”

“No,” the Doctor said instantly, though he still looked pensive. Half-formed theories regarding John Smith and choices and the fact that though they’d met a parallel Mickey, Jackie, and Pete, they’d never met a parallel Rose or Doctor (and the dog definitely didn’t count for Rose) ran through his mind. He’d once told Rose that parallel universes were created out of choices. Perhaps he and Rose had just unknowingly played a key role in the creation of Pete’s World, but only because Rose had been in Pete’s World to begin with.

It was actually sort of brilliant, he thought.

“No,” he said again, more firmly this time. “The split may have already happened. And time being all wibbly-wobbly, I don’t think you would have been able to come back to your present day with me in this universe if you were _supposed_ to be having your present day in Pete’s World.” He smiled and sat back down across from her. “You’re stuck with me.”

“Well,” Rose said with a smile. “Stuck with you, that’s not so bad.”

“No?”

“No.” She smiled at him warmly. “I love you, you know.”

“I know.” The Doctor leaned forward and kissed her soundly. He pulled back slightly and gazed seriously into Rose’s eyes.

“Rose Tyler,” he said, and for one painful instant Rose was terrified that he was about to disappear. But he remained solid and real, and she found herself smiling as he continued.

“I love you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's the end! I hope y'all enjoyed the fic. As of my unsuccessful 2012 attempt, this remains the only year I actually made it to 50,000 words during NaNoWriMo, so if nothing else I will always feel pretty awesome about this fic because of that, lol. Thanks for the kudos and comments that you've been leaving while I've been posting, and thanks for any you may feel inspired to leave if you're reading this after I finished posting it!


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